Are We Raising Useless Children?

As parents, we should be in the business of building capable and resilient adults. People, who at some stage, will be able to navigate the stuff of life – earning and managing money, feeding and cleaning themselves, forming friendships and relationships that function pretty peacefully and getting to where they need to be on time, without stuffing up too much along the way. If, in addition to this, you mange to raise bi-lingual, cello-playing, intellectually superior, chess champions – well then, Rah-Rah-Rah – bully for you. This post is clearly not for you. This post is just for us bog-standard parents – the ones just trying our best to raise half-decent human beings, whilst keeping them alive and out of jail for long enough, to realise how fabulously self-sacrificing we really were/are.

I am certainly no expert – that said I do have two children who are still alive and not in prison (so, yay for that!) – but, I worry at times that we are raising a generation of useless children. My kids have never known the fresh hell of not everyone getting a prize in pass the parcel. They grew up in a world where participation awards were standard procedure. Can you imagine, if in real life, you got paid for just, you know….. being alive! My kid’s have never had much use for an encyclopedia, a dictionary or even a map. Why bother looking for anything when Google, Suri or Wayz can find it for you? They can legit find exactly what they are looking for in less than a second. Anything, except what they might actually need for school that day – like their mouth-guard or ballet shoes or the note that needed to be signed and returned two weeks ago. Their brain is technologically outsourced nearly 90% of the time, so when it comes to remembering real things – like to pack their maths homework – they simply can’t compute.

And often – myself included – we are far too quick to step in and make it better. To drop off the forgotten sports kit, or fix their cracked iPhone. To re-arrange our lives to best accommodate theirs – because somewhere along the way kids stopped being ‘seen and not heard’, and became the centre of our universe. Maybe it was an inevitable backlash against the smack and punish type of upbringing of days gone by. Maybe all the parenting paraphernalia – books by baby whisperers, courses on mindful parenting, organic bloody everything – played its part. More people are not staying married now, so there is an extra layer of guilt-laden divorced parents bowing to every pre-pubescent demand. God forbid, they end up in therapy for some deep psychological trauma, that is All. Our. Fault. But that is part of the problem. We have all been working so damn hard to nurture their self-esteem, that we barely give them a chance to steem anything for themselves. The irony is, that between the baby yoga and the positive parenting, the child anxiety epidemic is at an all time high. No wonder they are all so f*cking anxious, when we haven’t given them the skills to survive on their own.

As I said, I am no expert, and I have been guilty of every it’s-easier, let-me-fix-it-for-you, don’t-worry-mummy-loves-you, shortcut known to man. But now that my two are on the cusp of adulthood, I do need them to know that life is not always easy, or fair or even much fun. Some days you just have to take that sh*t on the chin, and you can’t just go collapsing in a FML (f*ck my life) heap on the floor. And, sadly, we are not always going to be there to mop up, pay for, or fix whatever gets broken along the way. Because, tbh (to be honest) we have already spent 4 billion dollars and an unfathomable number of hours being a parent……..and sooner or later, it will be time for them to flee the nest. And hopefully, before we are too tired and too poor to enjoy the middle-to-back end of our lives.

I know a lot of mothers who are way better at this than me. But then I also know mothers who only ever let their unborn child listen to the news. In French. So, for what it’s worth, here are the entry-level requirements that I feel most parents should aim for, for the sake of their child, if not for their sanity.

• Your child should not be the most important person in the room.  Family psychologist, John Rosemond, reminded me of this in an article where he wrote that many problems people have with their kids, ‘are the result of treating their children as if they, their marriage, and their family exist because of their kids when it is, in fact, the other way around.’  It’s OK to say ‘No’ to them sometimes, to let them down on occasion and to decide that, this week, ‘date night’ takes precedence over ‘family dinner’. Some couples shine their beam so brightly on their children, that they totally dim the light on their partner, who was -let’s not forget – a major reason for wanting said kids to begin with.
• Don’t Praise Them Just For Being Pretty. Whilst there is nothing wrong with the occasional ‘pretty’ or ‘handsome’, God knows- we can all do with a confidence boost from time to time, it seems far wiser to compliment them on their more substantial attributes. Praise them for being clever, or funny, or patient, or brave. Every kid needs to believe they are good at something, but being pretty should not be their noted talent.
• Teach Them To Do Some Useful Stuff. There are certain things all kids should be able to do by the time they are 13 years old.
  • Make some extra money working part time.
  • Be able to cook one or two half decent meals.
  • Organise themselves for school/sport/extra curricular activities.
  • Do a load of washing.
  • Make conversation with an adult they don’t know very well.
• Find The Balance. You can be supportive, without supporting them every step of the way. You can make them feel safe, without being their safety net at the first sign of a fall. You can be their cheerleader, without constantly shouting from the sidelines, especially when there is little to cheer. And just because some days you may not like them, it doesn’t mean that you don’t still love them to death.

This Get Happier post is brought to you by a mother whose children do not play the cello. They do, however, speak fluent sarcasm and have learnt the joyous lesson of being able to laugh at themselves when required. #proud.

Photo Credit – Image is in the Public Domain.