“Oh my god!” the mother squealed. “Baby, are you OK? Did that hurt? What hurts, baby? What hurts?” The little girl commenced sobbing as what I deemed a nice save turned into a tragedy warranting a call to 911.
The woman swooped the little girl up into her arms, still blathering on about skinned knees and mommy kisses and taking all of her terrible, horrible pain away. As the duo headed into the store, the little girl and I locked eyes, and I used my mommy telepathy to read the child’s mind. I shivered at the words being shouted behind that precious child’s tears: “I own this b*$#%.”
Okay, perhaps that’s a bit harsh, but that little girl knew exactly what she was doing, and that mother played right into that child’s sticky little hands. I know, because my kids have done the exact same thing.
Today we live in a culture of fear—fear of pain, fear of loss, fear of strangers, fear of failure—and our children are the biggest victims. We want to protect them from everything, to keep them safe and happy and wonderful, but all that’s creating is a culture of helicopter parenting and a generation of children who can’t think for themselves.
I myself am a child of the ‘70s. I was born late enough to avoid disco but early enough to remember people smoking on airplanes. I grew up in the country, and by the time I was 6, I would spend hours exploring the woods behind my house, sometimes with my older brother, sometimes by myself. Yes, you heard that correctly: a 6-year-old girl, walking in the woods, by herself.
