A color-coordinated blouse, a woven straw basket and goody-filled plastic eggs: Those were the items on lists that Nia and Layla brought home from school weeks before Easter, designated to help commemorate the upcoming holiday and the arrival of spring. Layla would be needing the eggs and basket for her class’s Easter egg hunt, and the blouse would factor into what the kindergarteners would wear in their first-ever choir performance.
“I need a shirt that’s a color from the rainbow, like yellow or orange or green,” Nia said while I read, “and I’ve got to be there by 6:40 to get onstage and sing.”
“Yes, ma’am.” I logged the details into my calendar and proceeded with the evening already in progress, confident that our daughters would rise to each occasion without my grilling them or micromanaging every detail. There’s a difference, after all, between attentive parenting and over-involvement, and as more children enter society, their outrageous behaviors and expectations indicate that some folks cannot distinguish between the two.
We’ve all seen those types in action: They’re the domineering moms and dads that swoop in and take over at schools, games or any other child-centered activities to ensure their little Jessica or Jamaal can chant “All I Do Is Win” like DJ Khaled, no matter how much it costs, what it takes or who it hurts. Any good parent wants their children to succeed, but when that “victory” eschews courtesy and common sense, everyone involved takes a loss.
I’ve witnessed some jaw-dropping examples: Parents browbeating teachers when kids fail or get suspended, moms and dads who mistake “home training” for “being too strict,” and those who expect the world to indulge their brats. Some have even demanded explanations from employers when their newly graduated offspring don’t receive the expected lofty title or salary range. But one that earned some serious side-eye was the recent cancellation of an Easter egg hunt in Colorado, all because last year’s competition was ruined by parents who prevented children’s participation in the event by bum-rushing the park and snatching up eggs themselves.
Seriously.
Grown men and women actually decided that it was too challenging to stand on the sidelines and cheer as their kids secured their own Easter eggs, so they jumped barricades to go for self … ahem, to help out, according to the article appearing in last month’s USA Today. One actually condoned the chaos: “You better believe I’m going to help my kid get one of those eggs. I promised my kid an Easter egg hunt and I’d want to give him an even edge.”
He called parental sabotage “an even edge”? What’s next, tying other kids’ shoelaces together so your daughter wins a game of tag and letting the air out of your neighbor’s tires so your son gets to tryouts first?
Why are some parents so determined to shield kids from even the smallest of setbacks?
Author Ron Alsop explored the phenomenon in The Trophy Kids Grow Up, a book about millennial parents who consistently cheat their kids out of opportunities to learn from mistakes, producing narcissistic mini divas and mini jerks who can’t tolerate frustration and flip out at hearing the word “no.” It can hurt when kids take risks, mess up and fall short, but if they don’t learn as children to try harder, when will the time come?
Even if Nia did flub a verse or Layla wanted 12 eggs instead of eight, they learned and the victories were rightfully theirs to savor, not manipulated by parents determined to “win win win win win.”
Lorrie Irby Jackson is a Briefing columnist. Email her at lorrie.irby@gmail.com.
