"One sometimes sees these exhausted, devoted, slightly drab parents, piling out of the car, and thinks, Is all of this high-level watching and steering and analyzing really making anyone happier? Can we, for a moment, flash back to the benign neglect of the 1970s and '80s? I can remember my parents having parties, wild children running around until dark, catching fireflies. If these children helped themselves to three slices of cake, or ingested secondhand smoke from cigarettes, or carried cocktails to adults who were ever so slightly slurring their words, they were not noticed; they were loved, just not monitored. Those warm summer nights of not being focused on were liberating. In the long sticky hours of boredom, in the lonely, unsupervised, unstructured time, something blooms; it was in those margins that we became ourselves." -- Katie Roiphe in the Financial Times (as quoted in the December 3, 2010 issue of The Week)
Does Roiphe's jaunt down memory lane/dig at modern parenting strike you as gospel or gorilla shit? (...to steal a delightful line from "True Blood"'s Queen Sophie-Anne)?? Discuss.
14 comments:
I was certainly raised with benign neglect from about the age 8 onwards. In the summer holidays, my dad would pack us a lunch, kick us out of the house at 9 am, and tell us not to come home until 5 p.m. We wandered miles from home on our bikes, went skinny dipping in Okanogan Lake, and were completely out of reach until we returned home (pre-cell phones). I remember our summer holidays blissfully.
When my brother was 8 and I was 6, we walked to and from school by ourselves (crossing a major highway in the process).
I've been following the blog "Free Range Kids" looking for some inspiration on this subject. I really hope we manage to strike a healthy balance on this subject. We live about a block away (literally, cross one quiet residential street) from a community center and playground and I've been thinking about what age I would be okay letting DS go there by himself. Obviously, not yet, but when? I think it's important that kids be allowed to go places by themselves. Same with walking to the local corner store to buy a jug of milk. When is that okay? I really don't want to helicopter parent and I think a lot of fears about what could happen to unsupervised kids are blown way out of proportion to the actual probabilities of what could actually happen.
This is a great topic for community thoughts.
Nice one. I was most definitely a benignly neglected kid. Latch-key from age 6, long summers of no contact all day, etc.
I blame the pervasiveness of the 24-hour media monster. It's too easy to remember how you heard so many stories of kids being stolen from their front yards and such. But really that's among how many millions of kids over how many years?
Yet I am a victim of it, as well. I can't imagine letting my daughter ride her bike to school until... I don't know when. Because people drive like morons on our narrow country roads, and there's a big road with higher speed traffic to cross. But I was allowed (or more accurately, just did) walk and ride my bike all over suburbia which was webbed with busy main thoroughfares, and I was an average kid with a reasonable desire to live and remain unmaimed.
I'd like to lighten up, but can't really bear to think about what I'd feel like if something happened because I'd lightened up.
Yes, I remember playing outside and running in and out of the neighbors' houses as a kid. I even remember offering to go get my dad a pack of cigarettes when he was out (even in the 80s, kids weren't allowed to do that). I am a bit more cautious with my own kids. I think we know so much more now -- I would bet that in the 70s weren't any safer, just less media-saturated. And the accompanying blame game that is part and parcel with 24/7 media coverage. It's gone, broadly speaking, from "these things happen" to "whose fault is it that this happened?"
omg - I hate everything about this paragraph. The Ice Storm was a really good movie, though, and that's what I immediately thought of so there's a positive.
As though a parent not being lit and unaware somehow drop the temperature in summer... ugh. Does this woman have children? Is she really proposing that I subject my child to secondhand smoke and an opportunity to run about places unknown so my life will be less drab?
Sorry for the lack of proofreading!
I think you have to make a distinction between an 8 year old and a 1 year old. I anticipate that we'll gradually back off and reclaim more of our adult space as our kids get older. But when they are really little, they deserve a lot of my attention, in my opinion. And I think (hope?) that the intensity of how I'm parenting them now will lay a solid foundation for a more laid back future.
We went to a 4 year old's birthday party this weekend, and were struck by the difference in the parents- we weren't all hovering over our kids, anymore. They were running around playing, and we were all trusting each other to keep an eye on all of them, when they came into our view. I think this is part of the natural progression. I wouldn't expect my one year old to be able to play with her peers without me being right there (and in fact, I spent most of the party serving as a human walker for my 1 year old), but I do expect my 3.5 year old to do that.
Parenting preschoolers and toddlers is a pretty demanding job, and I suspect it always has been. Maybe Ms. Roiphe is rebelling against that mentality and not realizing that things can naturally get a little less intense as the kids get older. Or maybe in her circles, the parents don't back off as the kids age.
I enjoyed reading the paragraph that Katie Roiphe wrote and agree with some of the tone. I was most definitely raised in this 80's "whatever' time-frame. I roamed free most of the days during my single mom's work day. It was the acceptable norm and, thank goodness, nothing bad ever happened to me.
As an adult, I find myself almost proud of this fact. Like it was something cool that went on during the post-hippy era. "Yeah, my mom was so chill." As a parent, however, I am the complete opposite. I have found, as DD has gotten older that I have to remind myself to back off a bit and not be a helicopter mom. But, that doesn't mean I'm not watching and guarding. I will always be watchful. Perhaps it's the result of being raised in too unsupervised an environment or perhaps it's just me.
This is a great topic, Hush!
She has a child. Maybe more than one by now but google says she wrote something about a newborn being like crack. Which, coincidentally, is something it might not be all bad to do while being pregnant according to Ms. Roiphe. If you are that sort of lady.
"Here we are feeling guilty about goat’s cheese on a salad, or three sips of wine, and all the while these ladies, lighting crack pipes, are producing intelligent and healthy offspring."
I don't mind her position in this particular essay that no matter how bright a light we shine on our children, darkness will eventually fall, so back off and let there be a shadow or two. She just isn't my style.
I wouldn't say I was raised with "benign neglect" (that's a little harsh). But my parents were definitely more laid back... for a while. I have a bit of a unique experience in that me and my older sister were born in the late 70's while our two younger sisters were born in the late 80's. In the 90's, when I was babysitting them, I was probably more careful with their care (they didn't roam the neighborhood, I knew where they were) than my parents were with me. Don't get me wrong, my parents were more careful with them too, it wasn't just me. It was just the beginning of the "changing of the times" I guess. Things change. Perceptions change. What's ok and not ok changes. Its our culture.
I don't know if there actually are more child abductions or if we just hear about them more because we have so many more instant sources of information (internet, computers). I just know that if my three year old is out of sight in the grocery store or mall or whatever, I get a sinking pit in my stomach and start to freak the eff out.
But I agree there is an age where kids need to venture out on their own and gain some independence. I think I'll start with allowing play alone in our own back yard and go from there. We still haven't done even that (more because of our lack of fence though...).
Nothing much has changed here in Italy then in the last 30 years.
Some examples:
Wearing bike helmets ( especially on small heads) is only optional.
Seat belts in the back seat, again optional.
It is legal, although certainly not encouraged, to hold on to a infant ( say, in grandma's lap)in the car, for short trips.
Smoking when pregnant or breastfeeding is only slightly discouraged by gynos ( not, thankfully, by peds though.)
@Jac - The "Free Range Kids" book has been on my to-read list for ages, thanks for the reminder to check it out, and the author's blog! "When is it ok for a kid to do X alone?" is definitely one of those near impossible-to-answer questions ahead of time, though maybe we'll just know at a gut-level when the time is right. I think society has been answering that question with a resounding "much, much later" than whatever timeframe we experienced in childhood.
@Claudia - "I'd like to lighten up, but can't really bear to think about what I'd feel like if something happened because I'd lightened up." My thoughts exactly! Like a version of Murphy's Law or something - if you're a bit anxious/over-prepared then nothing ever happens.
@Clare - "It's gone, broadly speaking, from "these things happen" to "whose fault is it that this happened?"' Well put, and unfortch the answer to that question always seems to be "the parents." But sometimes shit just happens and it is unavoidable.
@mom2boy - I hear you on that hate. I don't know whether I love it or hate it. (Love "The Ice Storm," BTW). Roiphe isn't my favorite commentator ever; she engages in a lot of strange nostalgia for oppressive times she didn't herself live in (i.e. she was in the NYT saying how she wishes life were more like 'Mad Men' in some ways such as the daytime drinking and sexualized offices), and this seems to be an extension of that general "let's get back to those better-looking, good old (boys) days that arguably never existed" theme. Although part of me sees a shred of truth also. Perhaps this is like the broken clock being right at least 2 times a day.
@Cloud - "I think you have to make a distinction between an 8 year old and a 1 year old. I anticipate that we'll gradually back off and reclaim more of our adult space as our kids get older." So true. Seems to me that the exact same behaviors that would be reportable neglect while parenting a baby turn into 'benign neglect' or even thoughtful boundary-setting in due time, such as when the child is closer to age 10 and beyond.
@Blue - "As a parent, however, I am the complete opposite. I have found, as DD has gotten older that I have to remind myself to back off a bit and not be a helicopter mom." I, too, am the complete opposite of my parents' parenting in many ways. However, in my own childhood my mom was way more paranoid about risks than I think I am with my kids. With good reason in part: there literally was a serial child killer on the loose when I was 6 and he was captured at my old preschool. But she never calmed down. And actually I think she was rebelling against her own childhood. My mom was a total free range kid who basically raised her younger siblings. So it seems I'm part of this cycle of parenting as rebellion against the former generation's parenting.
@Melba - "I don't know if there actually are more child abductions or if we just hear about them more because we have so many more instant sources of information (internet, computers). I just know that if my three year old is out of sight in the grocery store or mall or whatever, I get a sinking pit in my stomach and start to freak the eff out." Absolutely true for me, too. It's like I can't suddenly un-know the horror stories, yet the everyday stories of nothing ever happening probably 99.9% of the time are not at all memorable.
@Paola - So interesting that Italy has remained the same. I wonder to what extent if any that has to do with grandparents being such a large part of the parenting (from what I've heard anyway, please correct me if I'm wrong).
@hush - Yeah, and probably the shred of truth is what is so irritating to me in addition to the tone. Ann Coulter gives me the same reaction. :)
Sure, the likelihood of a child being abducted from their front yard is small. But what about all the other things that happen?
My sister and I were just talking about this. While I would never use the term "neglectful" even in a benign way, my parents were more relaxed/hands-off/let us have time alone a lot more, as was the norm back then. BUT my sister and I both had experiences that were uncomfortable (thankfully just uncomfortable and not something worse) during times playing with "friends." Our parents didn't know anything about it and weren't around when it happened.
The bullying, the egging kids on to do things they shouldn't, the rough housing where at least one person isn't having fun... those are the things I worry about more than the major worries like kidnapping.
So while Roiphe's parents were off drinking and smoking, who was watching while a child was held under water longer than he/she was comfortable with? Who was watching Uncle Bob inappropriately touch a young child? Who was making sure the shy kid in the corner wasn't getting bullied?
I'm really not a helicopter parent, but I not going to ever be comfortable with the true free-range parenting, at least until they are much older. I believe there is a balance between the two that moves along a continuim as kids get older. I'm all about having a couple of glasses of wine at get togethers, but I can do that while supervising my kids and paying attention to where they are and what's going on.
Like @Claudia said, "I'd like to lighten up, but can't really bear to think about what I'd feel like if something happened because I'd lightened up." And in my mind, there are many "things" that could "happen."
@mom2boy - Amen, sister!
@caramama - "So while Roiphe's parents were off drinking and smoking, who was watching while a child was held under water longer than he/she was comfortable with? Who was watching Uncle Bob inappropriately touch a young child? Who was making sure the shy kid in the corner wasn't getting bullied?" YES!! My initial reaction to this was to wonder if any of the kids were getting molested at any of these parties! So very true.
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