#10 The Real Deal

The unknown.

Courtney and Kai provided a great conclusion to our class yesterday with their presentations, and left us all with a great thought to wrap up with: the unknown. I realized, if anything, that is what has scared us throughout this course. It is not knowing what goes on in childbirth...or the day to day duties of mothering...basically no practical knowledge of anything motherly.


This semester we've seen some horrible mothers and some terrifying children:

1. We've sympathized with Frankenstein's monster, as he terrorizes society because of his abandonment issues. ..
2. Freaked ourselves out with the story of Ben in The Fifth Child; the scariest child ever, by no real fault of his parents...
3. Watched in disbelief as Katherine abandons her husband and child in The South and finds love in Spain, only to be deprived by the death of her new husband and child---all the while, she endures all of this as emotionless as a log...
4. Studied the "problem with no name" that plagued many of our motherly predecessors in the '50s and subsequent decades--the inability to put a name to the emptiness they felt trapped within their home and role as mother...
5. Seen the danger of perhaps loving too much in Beloved...
6. Discussed the details of birth after reading "Giving Birth" ...
7. Suffered with Wayne and his family in Annabel as they tried to come to terms with an abnormal situation...

...and through all of that, many would think we've seen a pretty bleak view of motherhood. But I would argue that the scariest part of this class was actually reflecting on what I don't know about being a mother. For me, it gave new meaning to the phrase "knowledge is power." 

I've had to consider things that I had never before thought about. Instead of fearing the hard parts and things that could go wrong, everything we have read and talked about has made me for more prepared--empowered, if you will.

This class has caused me to read more literature dealing with mothers, and to remain more aware of moms in the news and in day to day life.

It isn't the stories or information that is scary about being a mother ourselves. It is what we don't know. And now I feel empowered enough to believe that I can do it.

#9 "Remove Child Before Folding": The Backlash of Helicopter Parents

Is it really necessary, as the title of this post suggests, for strollers to carry the tag "Remove Child Before Folding"? I hardly think so. 

But yes, these sort of labels now run rampant in our society thanks to the overprotective nature of today's parents. At least according to TIME's Nancy Gibbs in her article "The Growing Backlash Against Overparenting" . In this article, she details the multiple ways that parents today define the "helicopter parent;" the hovering, always-present, too-involved mothers (and fathers, although *surprise surprise* they are rarely mentioned). These parents have been known to follow their kids to college and altogether take away the meaning of independence.


"10 is the new 2. We're infantilizing our kids into incompetence," says mother, Lenore Skenazy, who was dubbed " America's Worst Mom" for letting her 9 yr old son ride the subway alone (read her take on her nickname here).  Worrying and keeping our kids from too much is doing more damage then giving them a little freedom to grow up; children grow up to be naive and incompetent because they are not given any responsibility anymore, or any room to grow on their own.

In my opinion, if this new modern parenting is provoking such asinine labels as previously discussed...and discouraging children from going to the park to meet up with friends for a friendly game of pick-up basketball...and encouraging parents to trail their kids to college....   we are going in the wrong direction. It is scary thinking about all the things that could happen to your child--but our parents and grandparents survived without labels informing them to remember to not do anything stupid. They survived days in the park and college all by their lonesome. As noted in the article, crime is actually down compared to previous generations--it is just more available because of the ever-present media; and by that I mean, available everywhere we look, so it seems like a lot. Either way, I don't think helicopter-parenting instills any sort of self-sufficiency or self-confidence or allows the kid to simply be a kid--and grow to be his own person.