Once again, friends, I. MUST. RANT. Why? I — just heard from a mom trying to get two other families to let their kids play with her kids in her yard for an hour a week, outside. Unsupervised.
AN HOUR A WEEK. She lives on a quiet street in quiet suburb in a quiet state. Classic single family homes. Zero traffic. Other parent (who has stood and watched three previous playdates) says, “Okay…but only in the backyard!” He worries that in the FRONT yard “something” could happen to his kid, “And if it did, I would kill myself.”
His actual words.
Constant fear is a NEW normal but NOT normal.
This kind of florid fantasizing AND self-flagellation is NOT NORMAL! It may feel that way because we hear it all the time now, but it is the product of a sick culture wiring parents to not only catastrophize but to literally not be able to see REALITY: A bunch of kids playing together on a front lawn — not even down the street! — isn’t 100% safe, true, but it is safer than almost any childhood activity since the dawn of time. It is, in fact, SUPER SAFE.
If that is not “safe enough,” the parent must be dreaming of life on some other planet, where there are no cars, no adults, no crime, no pavement, no pebbles, no dogs, no banana peels, and really just no life. If his kid was the ONLY CHILD IN THE UNIVERSE and was wearing a tracker and a hardhat and knee pads, MAYBE they would be SAFE ENOUGH for that single hour of free play the mom was proposing.
THINKING that THINKING THAT WAY is just what parents do is why we have to press the re-set button on our culture. It’s as sick as believing all people are out to get you, or all food is poisonous. It’s looking at a patch of grass and seeing a pit of fire that the kid will quite possibly fall into, and where dad will follow because he DESERVES it.
That’s nuts!
And common!
Can my 7-year-old do even the simplest thing?
“I could never live with myself” is why parents spend so much time helping and hovering. It’s why a mom wrote to my Facebook Group last week to say, “My 7-year-old wants to walk two blocks to the bus stop in our small town where we know people ON those two blocks. Does this make sense?”
YES IT DOES! Pleeeeeease let him go! It is like asking, “Is it okay for my son to use a fork, considering he could accidentally stick it in his eye?”!
I am so sorry that so many parents are so wracked with self-doubt when deciding to let their kids do ANYTHING other than sit on the couch, perhaps seat-belted to the cushions so they don’t slide off and hit their head on the coffee table. The CORNER of the coffee table.
What I’m trying to say (and now I’ll stop) is that what passes for “caring” or even “helicopter” parenting today is actually a psychological illness that has become so common people just think it’s innate.
It’s not. It’s NEW. Our parents – or at least our grandparents – didn’t go straight down this DOOM/DEATH/ALL MY FAULT/NOT WORTH EVER TAKING MY EYES OFF MY KID path every time their kids left the house.
If only there was some way to stop the drip of dread.
The cure? Same one the shrinks use for obsessive-compulsive disorder: Exposure therapy. That dad needs to spend an hour SOMEPLACE ELSE.
When he comes back and sees his kid is actually FINE for an hour on her own — even on the FRONT LAWN — it becomes impossible to keep imagining her dead from a game of tag.
This exposure therapy — FOR OUR ENTIRE CULTURE — can’t happen soon enough.
And if it works, maybe the dad’ll let the kid play for TWO hours a week. Oh happy day! (Or happy two hours. It’s a start.)
2 Comments
Moral dumfounding is defined as “the stubborn and puzzled maintenance of a moral judgment without supporting reasons” I think that Catastrophizing a Playdate is a great example.
BTW I learned about moral dumbfounding from one of the founders of letgrow.org. Lenore please send my praise onto Jonathon Haidt. I’m thrilled about the work that you and him are doing about leaning on government throughout the world to pass legislation that limits mobile phone use for children
Parents have a strong desire to protect their children and often become very emotional about it. This is natural and as it should be. However, emotion can override logic, and this is where moral dumbfounding comes into play.
For example, the image of a white van often evokes fears of kidnappers and human trafficking, whereas stunting a child’s development so they reach adulthood with a toddler’s mentality requires more complex thought. Unfortunately, statistics rarely factor into this mental struggle. For instance, crime rates are way down, and front yards are generally very safe, whereas anxiety and depression among children are on the rise due to the trend of overprotecting children and not allowing them to grow mentally.
Which risk should I choose? Many parents choose the one that is most vivid in their minds, regardless of logic or actual likelihood. A 0.000053% chance of kidnapping versus a 45% chance of growing up with an underdeveloped emotional regulator seems clear when analyzed logically, yet emotion often leads to poor decision-making. It’s more likely that children need protection from their parents poor decision making.
I love Jonathon’s analogy of the elephant rider. The elephant is extremely strong but can’t comprehend the likelihood of something happening. It can only think, “If there is any possibility of something bad happening then act as though it will happen. The elephant rider can think logically and can try to steer the elephant into allowing the child to play in the front yard. However, he has no chance.