Jerry Seinfeld is, in his own way, leading a one-man campaign against over-parenting...just watch his new Internet show, "Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee." He repeatedly brings up the idea that our parents never had much time for us, and that was okay--we turned out okay--and we don't need to coddle our kids and follow their every move and praise everything they do, and in fact by doing that, we're hurting them by not preparing them for the real world.
He has a point. I rarely watched "Seinfeld," by the way...I must be one of the only people I know who never found it funny, except in very brief snatches ("The Soup Nazi" for instance, or Elaine's crazy dancing). The self-absorption of the characters, the trivial issues that were being discussed--and more than anything, the feeling that the characters were two-dimensional, that they mostly served as props for the Main Joke, for whatever ridiculous situation was being played out--I just wasn't into it.
But I am absolutely nuts about "Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee." And Seinfeld's views on parenting make sense to some degree...I think we're due for a paradigm shift where contemporary parenting is concerned, and of course, I'm not the only one. (Read the books All Joy and No Fun or Nurture Shock for some more thinking along the lines of "maybe helicopter parenting isn't the way to go").
On the other hand...I worry a lot about my son spending too much time on the iPad, and steer him towards other activities; I worry when he doesn't get enough exercise; I want him to have at least two or three play dates a week, because he's an only child and will be too much the boss of his own universe without those. I volunteer frequently at his school. I scheduled many different activities for him this summer, and took him to those. My husband and I have very few date-evenings per year--three or four?--partly because my son still hates it when one of us isn't there to put him to bed.
So--in a sense, I do hover. I have a lot of time for my son.
Am I trying too hard?
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