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I see a major shift in parenting. Parents didn't used to hover over their kids. They used to let them be kids. Now parents sweat every detail. The only thing I can come up with is we have way too much free time on our hands these days. Got a better suggestion?
I too had a "free range" type of childhood. I was set free every morning with my only rule being to return when the street lights came on. My friends and I ruled the neighborhood! No parent in sight to keep us down...in reality, we weren't quite as stealth as we perceived ourselves to be.
Why? When I was roaming the neighborhood with my friends, we were always within sight or sound of SOMEONE'S mom. My mom didn't need to hover or worry about my safety because she knew that while I was out of her sight, I was within sight or sound of her cadre of auxillary moms. Fell and scrapped your knee? Whoever's mom was around cleaned it up and gave you a Band-Aid? Lunch time? Whoever's yard you were in, their mom would appear with sandwiches and Kool-Aid. Did something wrong? You got sent home by someone's mom and by the time you got there, your mom knew all about it.
Parenting, back in the day, was a TEAM effort. In my neighborhood, the majority of moms SAH and participated in "keeping an eye" on all us free rangers. Parents didn't have to hover because SOME parent always was on the job!
Sounds like pretty normal thinking for someone who actually has a mind and thinks about the furure. In a world of constant gratification and not much thinking about theoutcome I would say you have a legitimate concern for yourself and future. Like another poster said dont worry about them and most of all dont compare yourself. If it seems wrong to you it probably is ....go with your gut and try and find some happiness with whatever u do..Working can take alot out of people I know I worked for 28 years as an elctrician and Marine but now that Im nearing 50 its time to slow....One thing I will say is live your life like you have nothing to lose because in the end we cant take it with us.....
You do realize that your one instance doesn't disprove the rule, right?
When I was a kid, it was the rare parent who volunteered at the school or called the teachers to check on grades or fix them. Now we seem to have a mompetition going on. Kids are hovered over and not left to play on their own as MOST kids were in my day. When my dd was in elementary school, on a day projects were due, you could count on a line of moms coming in to deliver the project THEY just finished for their special snowflake. Did I have friends with hover moms when I was a kid? Yes. There were two girls across the street who had a hover mom, however, they were the unusual ones. Now being a hover parent seems to be the norm. It's almost a badge of honor to say "I SPEND MORE TIME WITH MY KID THAN YOU!". In the WOH/SAH debate this is often the fall back position for the SAHM's. Yet, we're all spending more time on our kids than our foremothers.
Our kids don't need this. It appears, to me, that parents have too much time on their hands. Today, a full time working mom spends more time with her chlidren than a 1970's stay at home mom did (and she spent more than a 1950's stay at home mom did) and a stay at home mom today spends even more time with hers. You have to stop and ask yourself why. Obviously, our kids didn't need this increase in parental time. Parents in the 1950's raised one of the greatest generations this country has seen WITHOUT hovering and without that extra time. Sadly, I think we're hurting our kids not helping them by devoting more time to them.
Obviously you have learned your mom's modeled behavior--if it works for you great--It sounds like it isn't working for one of your daughters though. I was brought up in the 50's and 60's, and had a lot of freedom--but I was brought up on Marine Corps bases--for school and recreation--we were hovered over by MPs. There were no problem teenagers--they were sent to boarding school off the base.
Over scheduling is part of this. My point is that maybe it's time to kick it down a notch. To go back to letting our kids play outside until the street lights come on.
Unfortunately, I do see not playing this game as having negative consequences for kids. Dd#2 has been unable to find a sport to play in high school. Because all of the other kids have been cheering, playing soccer, doing gymnastics, playing footbal, playing baseball, playing volley ball, etc, etc, etc...since they were 2, she can't make the teams. Still, I don't regret not spending her childhood going from one activity to another. I just wish high schools had more entry level sports for the kids who didn't pick one at 3. Dd#1 has been able to play high school sports because she attends the school I teach at which is small and has plenty of opportunities for kids who didn't start playing at 3. Dd#2 will have to pick a sport and take lessons for a year. Fortunately, she's highly gifted so, if nothing else, she'll have early graduation and her GPA to fall back on. It would be nice if she also had organized sports on her college applications but I'm not seeing that happening this year. Unfortunately, the only sport open to her is the one she doesn't want because it's "not cool" (which is why it's open to her. It's swimming.)
Well, I will agree with you here but I don't know how to change it. Yes, here in the 'burbs' our kids start playing soccer at 4, t-ball at the same age . . . so a child is behind by the time they start high school if they have not participated in organized sports. By middle school - they have been encouraged to narrow down to one sport to 'specialize' in.
I think they start waaay too young; but we all do it ~ because that's what everyone else is doing. There is no one to play with on the street because they are all out in their dance lessons; flag football; boy scouts; whatever.
This is not a SAHM vs working mom thing though - we are ALL doing it; at least where I live.
BTW, I've lived in two 'swimming states' where swimming is highly competitive AND cool (if you're good). My son is a good swimmer - but didn't start until about middle school and he will NEVER catch up to those super swimmers who started when they were 4. He just won't. He's made peace with it. He can still win at most high school competitions.
Though it may not be cool at your daughter's school - I knew right away that I wanted my son to hang with the swimming kids at our school. The vast majority of them are on the honor roll; they don't get into trouble ~ they just don't have time!
Oh, and swimming Moms work as a 'team effort' too. We all helped each other get our kids back and forth; feed them dinner if practice ran late; it was a great, if competitive, group of Moms.
I too had a "free range" type of childhood. I was set free every morning with my only rule being to return when the street lights came on. My friends and I ruled the neighborhood! No parent in sight to keep us down...in reality, we weren't quite as stealth as we perceived ourselves to be.
Why? When I was roaming the neighborhood with my friends, we were always within sight or sound of SOMEONE'S mom. My mom didn't need to hover or worry about my safety because she knew that while I was out of her sight, I was within sight or sound of her cadre of auxillary moms. Fell and scrapped your knee? Whoever's mom was around cleaned it up and gave you a Band-Aid? Lunch time? Whoever's yard you were in, their mom would appear with sandwiches and Kool-Aid. Did something wrong? You got sent home by someone's mom and by the time you got there, your mom knew all about it.
Parenting, back in the day, was a TEAM effort. In my neighborhood, the majority of moms SAH and participated in "keeping an eye" on all us free rangers. Parents didn't have to hover because SOME parent always was on the job!
As the saying goes, it takes a village.... When I was a kid, even if no one's parents saw me do something stupid, I could count on someone repeating what I did to someone who knew my mom. Kids are not, intrinsically, good at hiding the foolish stuff they do. There's always someone around but that's true today as it was back then. I'd say about half of the moms worked in my neighborhood but some worked days and some worked afternoons (mostly in jobs like retail or waiting tables. It was a lower/middle class neighborhood). We learned, quickly, that senior citizens report back IMMEDIATELY. You learned to stay away from their houses, lol.
I still don't see the reason to hover today. I live in a neighborhood with a large ethnic group that does not hover. They will drop their kids off at the park if there is any adult there thinking that that adult will watch the kids. Took me a while to get used to this. The first time I saw a mom leave a 3 year old and a 5 year old at the park, I was kind of taken back. I stayed until she came back. Apparently, where they come from, raising kids is a village effort. If there are adults around, it's fine to leave the kids. It's the American born moms I see hovering.
Interestingly, the children within this ethnic group are better behaved than our kids. MUCH better behaved. It's "Yes, Sir and Yes, Ma'am". The only issue we have is they seem to think the street is the place to play. Fortunately, ours sees little traffic as we don't connect to either major road. Needless to say, you drive very slowly down our streets.
Well, I will agree with you here but I don't know how to change it. Yes, here in the 'burbs' our kids start playing soccer at 4, t-ball at the same age . . . so a child is behind by the time they start high school if they have not participated in organized sports. By middle school - they have been encouraged to narrow down to one sport to 'specialize' in.
I think they start waaay too young; but we all do it ~ because that's what everyone else is doing. There is no one to play with on the street because they are all out in their dance lessons; flag football; boy scouts; whatever.
This is not a SAHM vs working mom thing though - we are ALL doing it; at least where I live.
BTW, I've lived in two 'swimming states' where swimming is highly competitive AND cool (if you're good). My son is a good swimmer - but didn't start until about middle school and he will NEVER catch up to those super swimmers who started when they were 4. He just won't. He's made peace with it. He can still win at most high school competitions.
Though it may not be cool at your daughter's school - I knew right away that I wanted my son to hang with the swimming kids at our school. The vast majority of them are on the honor roll; they don't get into trouble ~ they just don't have time!
Oh, and swimming Moms work as a 'team effort' too. We all helped each other get our kids back and forth; feed them dinner if practice ran late; it was a great, if competitive, group of Moms.
I'd love to see my daughter get into swimming but she's not budging. There's plenty of room here for kids who started late because swimming is the one thing that the girls do not do in the ethnic group I was talking about earlier (swimsuits are considered immodest and not to be seen in public). I'm hoping dd changes her mind. Few kids here start swimming early. Most start in middle school as dd did. But she's decided she doesn't like it. She's good at endurance swimming. I'm hoping the coaches can talk her into it as I think it is her best bet to be involved in a sport and, you're right, these are honor roll kids on the swim team. Maybe we can talk her into it next year when her friends join her in high school. They were all on the middle school swim team.
Maybe I should have let dd take gymnastics. She took one class when she was 4 and the coaches were talking about her training (she could watch anything done once and do it heself. She just knew how once she saw it.). I didn't want my 4 yo training for anything. Taking a class for fun is one thing but I wanted her to get to be a kid so we didn't stay with it (she really wasn't interested because it came so easily to her). Dd ended up in piano where she has excelled but that doesn't help her at the high school level. Now that the kids are older, we make it a point to send them to music camp together but that's the only time they really get to just hang out with each other. We're a scattered group so when group lessons stop, I'm guessing the kids will just keep in touch on facebook. I love facebook, it's kind of the back fence in a day and age when you might live 30 miles apart. I do wish this group had time to just hang out though. Unfortunately, we're from all different areas.
You do realize that your one instance doesn't disprove the rule, right?
And you do realize that your speculation doesn't make it a rule, right? The usual "not me" post is a perfectly acceptable retort to anecdotal evidence.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ivorytickler
Are snide side comments your only contribution here?
THIS is hysterical. Pot meet kettle. If you'd like the content of your posts responded to seriously, I'd respectfully suggest you watch your own tone when you post.
ETA: Lest this post stray too far off topic, IMO, it is somewhat fruitless to bemoan how things were so much better back in the day. Other than society having changed (not for better or for worse, per se) since most of us were kids ourselves, humans tend to selectively remember details from the remote past. There are and were pros/cons to the ways we live. I am not a fan of hover-parenting, but I don't know that it is accurate to say "if we just went back to the way it was in the 60s, kids would have better outcomes," either.
Last edited by eastwesteastagain; 10-08-2011 at 08:12 AM..
I actually saw a real live hover parent at the park yesterday. The kids showed up with Dad. They were playing and having a good time. Then I see this lady off in the distance aka hover mom. She walks over to the playground yelling, "careful on the slide, Johnny, oh how I hate how this playground is set up, so unsafe, look at these corners. Show Dad how you can slide. Stay away from that landing Johnny, Remember how you fell that one time, you be careful" and on and on and on.
Hover parents are rare, they can be sahm or wohm. It's not something that you can put on one particular group. I think it has much more to do with a parent's personality then how much time they spend with their kids. I remember a few hover parents from my childhood. They aren't limited to modern parents.
ETA: Just so ya know, Ivory, Hover Mom at the park was dressed head to toe in office attire. She met her family at the park on her lunch break.
Unfortunately, I do see not playing this game as having negative consequences for kids. Dd#2 has been unable to find a sport to play in high school. Because all of the other kids have been cheering, playing soccer, doing gymnastics, playing footbal, playing baseball, playing volley ball, etc, etc, etc...since they were 2, she can't make the teams. Still, I don't regret not spending her childhood going from one activity to another. I just wish high schools had more entry level sports for the kids who didn't pick one at 3. Dd#1 has been able to play high school sports because she attends the school I teach at which is small and has plenty of opportunities for kids who didn't start playing at 3. Dd#2 will have to pick a sport and take lessons for a year. Fortunately, she's highly gifted so, if nothing else, she'll have early graduation and her GPA to fall back on. It would be nice if she also had organized sports on her college applications but I'm not seeing that happening this year. Unfortunately, the only sport open to her is the one she doesn't want because it's "not cool" (which is why it's open to her. It's swimming.)
You do realize that kids can play sports during their childhood and still have a lot of free time to run wild in the neighborhood, right? Sports have seasons so you can even do more then one and still not be going from one activity to the next.
Some of you don't seem to realize there is some middle ground. Spending 45 minutes/week in my child's classroom (mostly in the hallway with kids other than my own) is not hovering. Keeping an eye on the kids in the front yard, is not hovering. Sorry, kicking them out the front door and expecting them back when the street lights come on does not make you a good parent.
I have seen hovering parents. Yes, they exist, but they are the exception, not the rule. Not everyone who shows a little interest in their kids is hovering.
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modeled behavior
The usual "not me" post. 
Obviously, our kids didn't need this increase in parental time. Parents in the 1950's raised one of the greatest generations this country has seen WITHOUT hovering and without that extra time. Sadly, I think we're hurting our kids not helping them by devoting more time to them.
