The parents behind the kids

When Amy Chau’s book, “Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother,” was set for release last winter, it was prefaced with a “Wall Street Journal” article that drew 5,000 responses on WSJ.com. Her child rearing perspective was simplified to a “mommie dearest meets extreme parenting” tough-love style touted in numerous articles and press tour stops.  In short, Tiger Moms, who drive fear and respect, do their job because they believe their children can be the best students – since academic achievement reflects successful parenting.

Ironically, Chau spent the next few days after the WSJ article retreating, as “The New York Times” suggested, while explaining that her unique work was meant to be a self–deprecating memoir – right down to the book cover’s admittance of how she “was humbled by a thirteen-year-old.”

Yeah. Right.

In contrast, one of the most controversial topics “New York Magazine” examined in recent years was an article by Jennifer Senior entitled, “All Joy and No Fun: Why parents hate parenting.”  Published July 4, 2010, it drove some of the greatest reader reactions and responses regarding “the aggressive nurturing of economically advantaged children.”  

Like the article states, “As we gained in prosperity, childhood came increasingly to be viewed as a protected, privileged time, and once college degrees became essential to getting ahead, children became not only a great expense but subjects to be sculpted, stimulated, instructed, groomed . . . Kids, in short, went from being our staffs to being our bosses.”

What is going on?

Frankly, I resent the sudden resurgence in stirring up self-doubt, guilt and regret simply to sell books and magazine issues to overzealous parents. But I do admit that I am intrigued by what these writers have found as ways to build self-confident, productive adults.

Did we walk into this glorified concept of parenthood with an intentional plan to do anything, give everything, sacrifice nothing and in Amy’s case, tolerate nothing? We didn’t plan on sainthood selflessness to the point of exhaustion, but sometimes parents admit it feels that way. After all, family is a team sport and parenting is the only job that needs 21 years, or so, to determine if you’ve won and whether the game was fulfilling. 

After nearly 19 years in the game, I still ask, what does it really take to help children go off and be the kind of adults we can be proud of, even envious of?  Is it exhausting extra-curricular hours and extensive dollars? 

In an increasingly busy world, I have found that it helps to simply be there. Remember that you can be a role model without taking over the role. Don’t do the work, but show how to do it. Accept alternate approaches because new methods aren’t wrong, just different to our own narrow thinking, and be prudent with “est” (biggest, smartest, tallest, strongest).

As for achieving and achievement, when a recent Eagle Scout ceremony talked about the family behind the recipient, the audience was reminded of the hours, the guidance, the support, and yes, even the car mileage that it took to build a leader. Avoiding the temptation in one’s life to be, as one congratulatory letter put it, “a human form letter” is a merit-worthy goal. 

At the end of the day, we all want the best for our kids.  But we need to define the best based on their personality and needs without it being at the expense of others, especially ourselves.