Smiling Mom

What about for Ben Affleck? This video is messing up my site, so I’ll just link to it instead.

This post makes me burn with anger.  I said what I think in her comments.  What would you do?

So, I’m a teacher. Have I mentioned that before? I currently teach two days a week and I have a fantastic team partner who teaches the additional three days. I’ve been a teacher since I was 21. So for the last nine years I’ve had the pleasure of coming into contact with many different children and parents. And I’ve learned a lot.

Today as I was scrolling through my Google Reader, I came upon Sara’s post from Suburban Oblivion. She recently wrote about being, or rather not being, the perfect parent. Today she piggybacked on this post by writing about kids who play independently vs. the ones whose parents are their playmate.

She writes:

I remember being as young as two or three playing outside by myself in a yard that not only was unfenced, but had train tracks running through the very back of the lot. I can feel the gasps from here- How did you ever survive?? Back then there was a clear line between kids and adults. Kids played, adults did whatever adults did. Adults did not schedule their entire lives around what the kids wanted. If they could work it in, great. If not, oh well. I can’t imagine a person of my parents generation spending the entire day shuttling kids back and forth to school, sports and playdates, even if they WERE a stay at home mom. Yet like so many of my own generation, that is exactly how my time is spent.

I’ve often struggled with this as well. I don’t always enjoy playing outside with my kids. I hate playing trains, and most of all, I hate when my kids can’t be independent. I know, I know. Rank me up there as a ‘bad parent’ but I don’t care. I have s**t to do! On top of rearing my kids, I have a house to manage, finances to keep up on, a husband to love, and a body to keep healthy. My sole job is not catering to my kids every whim.

So now I’ll bring this back to teaching. I have noticed that the kids these days are very different from the students of past generations. Students continually feel like it is their right to have an ongoing personal dialogue with the teacher, whenever they see fit. Often, very often, an assignment will be given and before a he even begins, the student is up at my desk saying, “I don’t get it.” As if trying but not completing the project exactly the way the teacher might want it would be a failure. Most teachers are so flexible, that we will take anything that resembles the previous directions.

It’s been know to happen that when giving my students free time, I have a child-or ten, come up and ask if I want to play with them. Uh, no! I don’t. Go make friends your own age!

I’m pretty sure that there are a few factors that lend themselves to this growing generation of dependent children.

1. Nanny’s helping to raise our kids. Can you imagine saying to your nanny, “Uh, ya. Can you allow my child to play independently? Feel free to watch a bit of TV today instead…” No, we expect them to entertain our kids! I know I do, each Monday that our nanny comes over.

2. Parents feeling the need to be playmate to their kids.

3. Smaller families.-giving us more time to devote to each child.

Sometimes the guilt overtakes us. I’ve been know to say to myself, “But BC is so distraught that I won’t go outside and watch him go down the slide….”

Ultimately, I believe that by teaching our kids to be independent, we are arming them with good tools to become successful, strong, secure, and confident people.

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