I am always amused by the obsessive parent syndrome I witness on the part of friends, co-workers, and other folks I know. They are constantly preoccupied by their children, and they think everyone else wants to hear all about them all of the time. News: not. These poor children are bound by structure, events, organized schedules, parental braggadocio about the most insignificant events, and endless family trips to the shopping mall and restaurants to relieve the boredom in between all of the endless, boring structure and insignificant events. This article includes some funny comments, including this:
Organizers of an annual Easter egg hunt attended by hundreds of children have canceled this year’s event, citing the behavior of aggressive parents who swarmed into the tiny park last year, determined that their kids get an egg.
…Parenting observers cite the cancellation as a prime example of so-called “helicopter parents” — those who hover over their children and are involved in every aspect of their children’s lives — sports, school, and increasingly work — to ensure that they don’t fail, even at an Easter egg hunt.
The parental obsession that children are always “winners” and never losers is detrimental to the future of those children. The pampered, structured, parent-assisted lifestyle these children experience does not prepare them for the challenges of life, and I see examples of this in the workplace and in public every day.
The article also pokes fun at one of the worst fads, ever, that began in the 1980s, and that is the absurd “baby on board” mania that graced the car window of almost every baby boomer with a brat. Currently, that tradition is carried on by the same kind of folks who brought us the annual “take your kids to work day,” which is always a great time, for me, to be out of the office at an all-day meeting, even considering how much I hate meetings.
I remember that when I got to be in my early 30s and I began to reflect on my childhood dreams, desires, failures, and whatnot, I thanked my parents for a life with a stay-at-home Mom, as well as a childhood free of structure and helicopter parenting. My parents never obsessed on me, they never hovered over me, and they didn’t plan my hobbies and plot my course in life. Nor were they constantly pushing me to do whatever it was that they thought I should do to conform to their expectations formed by adult peer pressure.
Here is a video on the story from FOX News.
