Do you over-parent?

Unfortunately, the Time Magazine article, The Growing Backlash Against Overparenting (click here to read it), describes both me and my parenting skills; but I do consider myself a recovering “over-parent.”

For starters, here are two things I agree with: 1) children do need free time; and 2) children should not be over-scheduled with classes, play dates or activities. I used to over-schedule my kids’ lives but now think that was more about getting me out of the house.

On the other hand, being lax on safety with the notion that it will teach your kids independence is crazy to me. The number one job of a parent is to protect their kids from harm until they can protect themselves. I am not talking about a scraped knee. Of course they need to fall but they don’t need to burn themselves to figure out that fire is hot. The article says very proudly that only 1 in 1.5 million kids are abducted. Is that supposed to make me feel better? Is that supposed to give me the confidence to let my child roam the streets in search of independence? For me, 1 child abducted is 1 too many. Don’t forget, that statistic only reflects the reported cases. What about the kids who are robbed, beat up or sexually assaulted? Where do they fall in the statistic pool?

Friends keep telling me that our country was just as dangerous when we were growing up as it is now. They say it is just the media that makes us more aware (or paranoid). I disagree, our country has changed. More moms are working and there are more single parents so now there are fewer supervised children. As a result, there is more opportunity for danger or lack of training on how to avoid it. Plus, we no longer live with our relatives and friends as neighbors, which provided security when I was growing up. And I feel like the country has become a much smaller place (via the Internet and other technology sources) which also gives strangers more access to our kids. The only thing that hasn’t changed is our children’s innocence as well as our job as parents to protect and educate them.

barb