We are facing an epidemic of insecure parenting. Many parents are afraid not just for their children, but of their children. A sixty-three-year-old man I know hadn’t talked to his son Michael in several weeks, so he called him long distance to chat. Barely three minutes into the call, his three-year-old grandson, Jeff, starts to make a fuss in the background. Michael suddenly announces that he will have to get off the phone because Jeff hates it when his parents are on the phone and not paying enough attention to him. Michael makes a quick goodbye and hangs up. His father is dumbstruck but says nothing, out of fear of sounding critical of his son’s parenting.
My wife and I had a similar experience when visiting old friends. We had not seen them since the birth of their daughter, Tanya, five years before. Tanya seemed like a normal, shy little girl when we arrived, saying hello and then quickly toddling off to play by herself. The four adults sat down to catch up with our lives. No more than five minutes had elapsed when Tanya burst into the room and angrily confronted her parents. She said that there was too much “adult talk” going on and that it was not fun for her. Her parents jolted to attention as if responding to a commanding officer. They apologized for being insensitive and promised to cease the adult talk so that Tanya could join the conversation. However, Tanya did not want to join the rest of us in any kind of conversation. Instead she wanted to play alone with her mother, who proceeded to excuse herself for the next thirty minutes, until Tanya released her to begin cooking dinner.
My own children, ages eleven and thirteen at the time, watched this scene with quiet amazement. I don’t think they had ever encountered this combination of an autocratic child and timid parents. It was like they were watching a new force of nature. You see, although my wife and I have made our share of mistakes as parents, we never caught the virus of fearfulness and insecurity that has infected many good contemporary parents.
Here’s one more story, this one about the fear of disappointing our children’s consumer desires. A mother was frantically searching for the Pokemon video game (the latest rage among preteen boys) in a major retail store. After the clerk told the mother that the game was sold out, the mother begged the clerk to write her son a letter, on store stationary, testifying that the game was out of stock. “He will never believe me,” explained the mother. The clerk politely declined, leaving the mother to fend for herself against the suspicion and fury of a nine-year-old scorned.
What do you think is going on in the three stories I have described? Have you seen similar things or had similar experiences? If these stories were set forty or more years ago, you might assume that these were unusual families with very unskilled parents. But these three families are actually fairly typical for the current generation, with parents who are devoted, caring, and sensitive—and afraid of displeasing their children. They are parents who set too few limits, because they are afraid to upset their children too much.
My, how things have changed—both for better and worse. In the course of one generation of parents, we have gotten a lot better at being sensitive to our children and their needs and a lot worse at setting limits for them.
We no longer want our children to grow up in fear of our anger, but we now live in fear of theirs.
We know when to explain ourselves and negotiate with our children, but not when to cut off further discussion.
We know the importance of open expression, but don’t know when to insist that a child be quiet or stop interrupting adult conversation.
We support our children’s right to express their ire and frustration, but don’t know when they cross the line into disrespect.
We are experts at finding community activities for our children to participate in, but don’t know when to say “enough.”
We are willing to bend our family time to fit our children’s schedules, but are hesitant to limit their schedules for the sake of the family.
We are better at knowing what to buy for our children than what to deny them.
We are better at helping our children make their own decisions, but are confused about when we should make decisions for them.
When dealing with schools, we are better at advocating for our children, but fail to side with the school when our child’s behavior is out of line.
We are more involved with our children’s sports activities, but we have lost the balance between home life and kids’ outside activities.
We know more about raising our children than about nurturing our marriages, which sometimes must be protected from our children’s demands.
We earnestly desire to meet our children’s needs, but often can’t separate their needs from their desires.
