I read another article today about how we are doing a poor job of raising our children. These articles come in a few different flavors. Some say that Helicopter Parenting is robbing our children of their childhood by not providing them a chance, through unstructured play, to explore their world and their own abilities and limitations. Others argue that children are treated too much like peers to the adults in their lives bestowing them with an undeserved sense of superiority. And yet others claim that we heap too much praise on them resulting in feelings of entitlement. This particular article took an interesting tack in suggesting that such praise resulted in a perception of conditional love which can't be a good thing.
Do I agree with these arguments? The first, definitely; the rest, not so much.
However, they all make the same basic claim. They put forward the thesis that we are not providing our children with the tools to answer the call, rise to the occasion, and meet the challenge of adulthood. And, even worse, that we are not preparing them to be happy in the doing of it.
But I have been thinking lately that this might all be hogwash; that this sounds like a familiar refrain. How can we possibly prepare our children for what their world will be like when we have no idea what form that world will take? Did our parents prepare us for the information age: for a world with a 24-hour news cycle, a global economy, and a level of connectedness around the globe the likes of which had never been dreamed?
And what tools could the parents of the Greatest Generation possibly have given them to prepare them to land on the beaches of Normandy and do that job? Sickles and Hoes? And were they happy in the doing of it? God, I hope not!
Ben was half right. When the first certainty comes for my generation, the second will be that the current generation of youth will answer the call, rise to the occasion, and meet the challenge, and then, in some as yet unforeseen reality, complain about the next.
