Yesterday I mentioned a theory that excessive modern hygiene–which is a form of risk reduction–leads to the under- and overdevelopment of different aspects of our immune system. If parents don’t let kids go out and play in the dirt, their developing immune systems don’t get the workout they need to develop properly.
That’s the theory anyway.
Unfortunatley, this is not the only area in which parents are inclined to be overprotective of their children today. In the last few decades, parents have been driven absolutely wild with worry about their children (and the media is in significant measure to blame) and this has led them to take an extraordinarily risk-averse approach to parenting that would have struck prior generations (and which does strike other cultures today) as obsessive.
This is true among devout Catholic and Evangelical parents, as well, including homeschoolers (and I count myself as a BIG fan of homeschooling; should I ever be so fortunate as to marry and have kids, I am determined to do what is necessary for them to have a solid homeschooled education).
Recognizing the horriffic culture rot going on around them, Christians have frequently tried to shield children excessively from the challenges of modern culture (e.g. not letting them see scary movies, violent movies, movies with cuss words in them, etc., etc., etc.).
At times, it seems that modern parents (both religious and non-religious alike) are driven by the assumption that they must protect their children from every possible danger or they are being bad parents.
No.
Quite the contrary.
Their job as parents is to raise children who are able to function successfully as adults in the culture as it is, not to forever shield them from any and all dangers.
Since our culture today poses many risks (to adults as well as children!) that means children must be prepared to deal with these risks. The only way for that to happen is to allow children to be progressively exposed to more and more risk–and feel both the rewards of responsible behavior and the pain of irresponsible behavior–so that they learn how to manage it.
Sure, when kids are first born they are completely helpless and have to be shielded and taken care of in virtually everything, but as they grow they have to be allowed to face risks and dangers, in a very limited way at first but with progressively more self-reliance as they age. (Some things, of course, being things to which parents must never willingly let them be exposed, like porn).
If children are shielded from danger and never allowed to make their own decisions (even foolish ones) as they age then bad consequences will follow.
Certain aspects of their psyche will underdevelop and others will overdevelop.
How many parents have had their kids go off to college and, for the first time suddenly free of direct parental control, go completely nuts? How many other parents have kids who can’t seem to cut the cord of dependence on parents, well into physical adulthood? How many have both happenb? These are consequences of not letting children face risk and assume responsibility as they grow.
Even secularists are noting the phenomenon.
HERE’S AN ARTICLE FROM PSYCHOLOGY TODAY ON THE PROBLEM.
Jimmy,
This is probably my argumentative nature, but I for one am more concerned about violating the innocence of children.
The shrink’s argument often comes up when discussing the dating habits of children. People like myself would argue that a child should not date unless they are capable of marriage which certainly isn’t prior to graduation. The more tolerant among us (I don’t think you are in this group) say that children need to make decisions in this area so that they aren’t like uncaged animals when they leave the home.
I tend to like natural causes parenting particularly when it comes to eating. You don’t eat; you’re hungry. I happen to also like the idea of molding children, e.g. forcing good study habits upon them. It seems like the children’s freedom brigade is interested in freedom only when the consequences can truly mess up a child.
This is not a new phenomenon, this is apparently why the Pilgrim’s left the Netherlands for New England.
Isn’t this the plot from ‘Finding Nemo’?
Echoing part of Mr. Forrest’s comment, I concur that dating (strictly defined as boy:girl alone rather than some group activity) is mate-searching and thus best deferred until adulthood (defined here at the Barnett Compound as employed and out of my house). Further, in my last three years as a father, I’ve noted that fathers of boys seem to consider dating to be less problematic than fathers of girls.
Also, on the issue of protecting kids from the kultursmog, we do what we can to keep pornographic, blasphemous, and gratuitous violence off their radar screens; but, for example, I would let my (less than 10 yr old) kids watch Band of Brothers before I’d ever let them watch some dreck like “Friends.”
Beyond that, the best I can hope to do is train them to be good and reasonable people; spotting evil and idiocy is half the battle to thwarting it.
I think in addition to making people socially inept, overprotection leads to a half hearted, uncharitable faith. Me and my buddy (both 22) were sharing childhood memories, and one we both had was telling kids they were going to hell because they were taunting us or giving us a hard time or something, we were real brats, but this horribly uncharitable attitude came directly from our parent’s sheltering, it created an attitude of spiritual elitism or something. So when I turned 18, moved out, started going to school and supporting myself, I had no reason to take my faith seriously untill I experienced failure and evil. I’ve learned more in the past year than the previous 20 but it’s been a hell of a year.
I’ve seen the same scenario play out a dozen times among my peers who were homeschooled or went to catholic schools. Kids having children out of wedlock, or not moving out of the house untill they’re 21-22, failing out of college, depression, alcohol. All these things catch them by surprise when they get into a world they were completely unprepared for.
Mr. Forrest, not sheltering your kid doesn’t mean letting them do whatever they wan’t. Of course kids shouldn’t be seriously dating in highschool, but that doesn’t mean they can’t have girl/guy friends and hang out with them in certain situations. You have to use those as teaching upportunities rather than simply oppressing behaviour.
BTW, Barbara Nicilosi has good things to say about just this issue.
http://churchofthemasses.blogspot.com
The primary reason for my comment is that the whole topic strikes me as a sermon on Jansenism (sp?) when there is 100% participation in the Eucharist. I’m only your senior by 5 years GregC (though I do have 2 children), so I know where you are coming. The goal of assertive parenting is not to prevent the falling away you describe as much as it is designed to keep it as short as possible.
Keep in mind, that when you look at the successful in life, it is not children of the layed back parent that succeed. Often successful children come from driven parents or addicts. The former, because they learned hard work early; the later, because again they learned to work hard early usually having to care for younger siblings.
Proving an exception does not change the rule. The easiest way to see this is to look at retention rates among children of Unitarians and say…Baptists. While some Baptist children will leave their faith, they as a rule do come back. Similarily, some Unitarian children will indeed stay in the faith, but most will not.
It’s funny that you mention Jansenism because Confessions was a catalyst in my re-conversion. I get your point but I think we’d agree that there is a certain level of honesty about culture and the human condition (fallen) that needs to be taught without going into that other extreme (of jansenism).
“The goal of assertive parenting is not to prevent the falling away you describe as much as it is designed to keep it as short as possible.”
You think so? Again (although this is purely anecdotal and hindsight is 20/20, my problems are my responsibilty, blah blah) I think there are lessons I should have learned growing up that could have prevented allot of problems I had and any degree of falling away.
As far as retention rates, are you saying something about the parenting styles of Baptists and Unitarians or something about their respective faiths? (I don’t know what they teach or emphasize about human depravity etc., so I don’t know if this is a referance to your previous comment).
Michael, regarding Unitarian children: How would you -know-? 😉
That would be speculation on my part. The Unitarians are a very liberal sect (no longer requiring a belief in God even) that came from the Pilgrims. The Unitarians happened to be the sect I picked on. The actual evidence I’ll give is a study that came out not too long ago that showed many people were moving to Mormonism, JW, Baptist, Fundamentalist, and Catholic congregations. Retention was poor in Lutheren, Methodist, and Episcopalian (I believe on the last one) congregations.
This is somewhat logical. There is an odd marketing truth that you will get rid of more goods if you give them a price rather than making them free. This has to do with people believing there is no substance to the free item. Similiarly, churches that demand nothing of their members do not realize their full market potential, because the members have to give so little.
I am a revert as well GregC. I came from the Baptist faith community. I’ve observed the same disturbing trend amoung Catholic school students. I think there are other contributing factors there. Among children generally, I see a real lack of foundation. A lot of it I see as a refusal to live a life of holy poverty. It drove me crazy as a Baptist hearing that ridiculous sermon on Mother’s Day about how much women sacrifice and are often forced to work two jobs to support their families. This has often been stated by many liberal Catholics. It is nothing more than a cruch for 95% that hear this message. Over the past 50 years we have abandoned a generation of children, and we wonder why they are as messed up as they are.
Children have become no more than property in this society.
Don’t want one?
1) Abort it.
2) Kill it and get maybe a year in jail and probation. (b/c the poor mother has to live with the death of her child.)
3) Throw it into daycare 50 hours a week.
4) Contracept so that your ‘love’ isn’t interfered with.
Heaven forbid you have a child and find the spark ain’t there for momma; divide the child up between the spouses like the rest of their property.
Hey, if you are a crack addict or engaging in some other self-destructive behavior, we’ll send you to treatment and give your child back when you get out, so that *you* don’t have to be deprived of *your* child.
Wow, great irony for me in your words, children as property or commodity is a scary thought because if you take it to its logical extremes, great evil ensues.
The irony is in the fact that I was just reading a story about children being sold on a borderline satanic black market. If you ever want to be scared out of your mind, google the Franklin Credit Union scandal, it starts out sounding like a completely absurd and disgusting conspiracy theory, but there are some facts that simply aren’t plausibly deniable. And I thought my hometown was so quaint and nice! I pray it’s not true.
A late note –
In my experience, exposing children to controlled degrees of risk is especially important for boys. Taking on challenges/adventures which necessarily involve risk is an essential part of the move to manhood. In fact, a recent article by the Catholic Psychologists’ Association encouraged ‘rough and tumble play’ (i.e., exposing children to ‘physical’ risk), like wrestling or throwing up in the air and catching, between fathers and boys, because such ‘controlled risk’ is necessary to build masculine virtue (the article was on homosexuality – fill in the dots).