Bear with
me. This might take me a couple of posts to make my point. As any parent does,
I’ve been wondering a lot lately about 1) what exactly is my role? And 2) how
am I doing at it?
The following is one of those emails that has been bouncing around the internet for a while, who knows if it really occurred, but that doesn't really matter. (EDITED TO ADD: see the comment below from Ellen; this WAS NOT a speech from Bill Gates. The true history behind the list is here.) The ponts it raises are valid, whoever said them on whatever occasion.
Bill Gates recently gave a speech at a High School about 11
things they did not and will not learn in school. He talks about how feel-good,
politically correct teachings created a generation of kids with no concept of
reality and how this concept set them up for failure in the real world.
Rule 1: Life is not fair -- get used to it!
Rule 2: The world won't care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you
to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.
Rule 3: You will NOT make $60,000 a year right out of high school. You won't be
a vice-president with a car phone until you earn both.
Rule 4: If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss.
Rule 5: Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your Grandparents had a different word for
burger flipping: they called it opportunity.
Rule 6: If you mess up, it's not your parents' fault, so don't whine about your
mistakes, learn from them.
Rule 7: Before you were born, your parents weren't as boring as they are now.
They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and listening
to you talk about how cool you thought you were. So before you save the rain
forest from the parasites of your parent's generation, try delousing the closet
in your own room.
Rule 8: Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life HAS
NOT. In some schools, they have abolished failing grades and they'll give you
as MANY TIMES as you want to get the right answer. This doesn't bear the
slightest resemblance to ANYTHING in real life.
Rule 9: Life is not divided into semesters. You don't get summers off and very
few employers are interested in helping you FIND YOURSELF. Do that on your own time.
Rule 10: Television is NOT real life. In real life people actually have to
leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.
Rule 11: Be nice to nerds. Chances are you'll end up working for one.
One of the
concepts in parenting I’m trying to think through is how much am I supposed to
do for my kids? I believe they need to fail, to struggle, to learn how to try
hard so that they will care about their success. In my high school English classroom, there
was a quote over the door that I will always remember (thank you, Mr. Knap!).
“Suffering is the sole origin of consciousness."
~ Feodor Dostoevsky Notes from Underground
I think
this should probably apply to parenting as well. I’m not saying let them stick
their fingers in the light sockets, but maybe they do need to learn, for
example, that if they don’t put their karate uniforms away properly, that they
will miss the next class. I’m not sure it’s my job to totally intervene between
them and the world.
This all
came to mind last week when I went along on Jack’s kindergarten field trip to
the nature center. The information was very clear: they were going to the
nature center to study BUGS; they were to wear clothes that could get MUDDY;
they would need to USE THEIR HANDS, so they shouldn’t bring water
bottles or anything they needed to carry.
Now on all
the kindergarten trips so far, there has been an (over) abundance of
parents. I think we all (especially those of use who are experiencing
kindergarten parenting for the first time) are enthralled with every
experience and tag along inappropriately (I’m guilty of this as well). I
know they need chaperones, but on the field trips I’ve been on, there’s been a
two-to-one ratio of kids to parents (don't any women in Solebury Township work?)
So there we
are at the nature center. I had my camera, and that’s about it. And then there were some moms who felt the
need to completely intervene between their child and the world. Those moms had
brought: bug spray, gardening gloves, antibacterial wipes, water misters,
sunscreen, extra socks, water bottles and who know what else.
This was a
friggin’ two hour trip to a nature center about ½ mile from the school to
collect bugs in a field, a pond and the woods. The kids weren’t foraging in the
Amazon Jungle or anything. What did those moms think was going to happen? I
watch in disbelief as these mothers hovered, misting their children with water
to ease the heat, chasing them down after each time they handled bugs to
cleanse their hands with wipes, and LOUDLY muttering to each other, “When is
this going to be over?”
What was
Jack doing during all this? … catching bugs, wading in the pond to catch
tadpoles (bad mommy me, I didn’t intervene and he ended up covered in mud to
his knees. At least three mothers
offered to let ME use their wipes to clean him up, and I referred them to Jack
and let them give HIM a chance to wipe his legs off … he declined. They didn’t
talk to me much after that.)
TO BE CONTINUED ...
