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Hoverparents & Terrorism
11/9/10 15:24I've been saving up and refining this thought for a while; today seems an appropriate time to post it.
I've been a pretty regular reader of the "Free-Range Kids" blog for about a year now. I started reading it due to being interested in the state of civil liberties in schools, but for a long time after that initial introduction, I wasn't sure why I kept reading it. I don't have kids. I don't have much interaction with kids, as I don't see my relatives' or friends' children regularly. I don't want kids.
At first I thought that my interest in child/adult interactions meant that maybe I did want kids, but then I realized (again, by reading the blog) that I was wrong. Just because "being or becoming a parent/caretaker of children, or being a researcher of children" are fast becoming the only culturally-acceptable reasons for being interested in child/adult interaction, or being an adult interacting with children, that didn't mean that those are the only legitimate reasons to be interested in those things. It just meant that those were the only culturally acceptable ones. I could be interested in child/adult interactions without wanting children of my own or wanting to study children. Other people might view that attitude with with distrust, fear, and suspicion, but that was because our culturally-acceptable reasons for being interested in child/adult interaction are defined too narrowly; it was not my fault for having an genuine interest in child/adult interaction without wanting to be a parent or scientist.
I realized, eventually, that I was trying to read the blog to heal from two different, but related, experiences:
a.) Having parents who started out relatively laissez-faire, and then became more, not less, protective as I grew older and more competent.
b.) Having parents who dismissed my choices for my life and boundaries even as an adult, who continually tried to replace my choices with their own, and how to deal with that as an adult--how were other adults dealing with people who tried to replace their own choices (in this case, their choices about how to raise their children) with someone else's choices about what was "best" and "safest?"
So, after I realized that, I kept reading the blog because I realized it was giving me tools to help heal, and understand my own parent/child interactions, as well as interactions with other people.
There's this phenomenon, often discussed on the blog, where hoverparents monitor their child's every move in order to protect and cushion them from the unpleasantness and failure to be found every day in the real world. Of course, this is impossible: something bad happens eventually (death, if nothing else). Parents know that something bad will happen eventually to their children, and still don't have precognition, so many parents settle for the next-best thing--trying to prepare themselves and their children for every bad eventuality that might happen, in case it comes along. And then, of course, when the prep-work doesn't take or there is an eventuality that no one thought to prep for, the parents excoriate themselves, and are excoriated by others--not for being unable to protect their children from problems in an unforeseen and an unforeseeable future, but for failing to prepare for all possible unforeseen futures.
I think that has a lot to do with the way American foreign policy is going right now.
Which is why I just sent an op-ed to the NY Times detailing that. Maybe they'll run it; maybe not. But I just wanted to put that out there for people to chew on.
I've been a pretty regular reader of the "Free-Range Kids" blog for about a year now. I started reading it due to being interested in the state of civil liberties in schools, but for a long time after that initial introduction, I wasn't sure why I kept reading it. I don't have kids. I don't have much interaction with kids, as I don't see my relatives' or friends' children regularly. I don't want kids.
At first I thought that my interest in child/adult interactions meant that maybe I did want kids, but then I realized (again, by reading the blog) that I was wrong. Just because "being or becoming a parent/caretaker of children, or being a researcher of children" are fast becoming the only culturally-acceptable reasons for being interested in child/adult interaction, or being an adult interacting with children, that didn't mean that those are the only legitimate reasons to be interested in those things. It just meant that those were the only culturally acceptable ones. I could be interested in child/adult interactions without wanting children of my own or wanting to study children. Other people might view that attitude with with distrust, fear, and suspicion, but that was because our culturally-acceptable reasons for being interested in child/adult interaction are defined too narrowly; it was not my fault for having an genuine interest in child/adult interaction without wanting to be a parent or scientist.
I realized, eventually, that I was trying to read the blog to heal from two different, but related, experiences:
a.) Having parents who started out relatively laissez-faire, and then became more, not less, protective as I grew older and more competent.
b.) Having parents who dismissed my choices for my life and boundaries even as an adult, who continually tried to replace my choices with their own, and how to deal with that as an adult--how were other adults dealing with people who tried to replace their own choices (in this case, their choices about how to raise their children) with someone else's choices about what was "best" and "safest?"
So, after I realized that, I kept reading the blog because I realized it was giving me tools to help heal, and understand my own parent/child interactions, as well as interactions with other people.
There's this phenomenon, often discussed on the blog, where hoverparents monitor their child's every move in order to protect and cushion them from the unpleasantness and failure to be found every day in the real world. Of course, this is impossible: something bad happens eventually (death, if nothing else). Parents know that something bad will happen eventually to their children, and still don't have precognition, so many parents settle for the next-best thing--trying to prepare themselves and their children for every bad eventuality that might happen, in case it comes along. And then, of course, when the prep-work doesn't take or there is an eventuality that no one thought to prep for, the parents excoriate themselves, and are excoriated by others--not for being unable to protect their children from problems in an unforeseen and an unforeseeable future, but for failing to prepare for all possible unforeseen futures.
I think that has a lot to do with the way American foreign policy is going right now.
Which is why I just sent an op-ed to the NY Times detailing that. Maybe they'll run it; maybe not. But I just wanted to put that out there for people to chew on.
