As an academic advisor at a large community college, I’ve noticed a strange phenomenon. More and more of my students are coming to their advising appointments with their parents. I have no problem if a student wants to bring their parents, but what’s concerning is that often when mom or dad is present, the student is not the one asking the questions or leading the appointment. Time and time again, I see parents who have done hours of research on our nursing program and have a laundry list of questions and concerns while the student sits silently beside. I honestly don’t even know if the student really wants to be a nurse or is just happy mom picked a major so she didn’t have to! As someone who believes that 18 year olds should be making their own life decisions, I try to direct as much of my advising directly to the student, but it’s difficult sometimes when the parent is the one leading the appointment. I’m left awkwardly shifting eye contact and trying to get the student to take a bit of ownership. This is not how my family did college exploration. When I enrolled for my first year of college, they drove me down for orientation and dropped me off at the door. Was I scared? Of course I was. Now as a parent myself, I can also acknowledge that my own fears and anxieties probably paled in comparison to theirs. But they did it anyway. And you know what? I figured it out. I sat down in the big auditorium where I knew no one, I went on the tour and scheduled for classes. And I’m so glad that I did. My parents knew what so many parents these days do so poorly – that their job was to raise an adult and that part of that process means slowly and surely letting go.
It is hard to be a parent these days. I’m sure this is the same sentiment my parents had while raising us and their parents had and their parents had. From the moment we find out that we are expecting a child, something inside of us changes. We are no longer simply responsible for our own outcomes, but the lives of other humans. That’s so much pressure! I’m not sure that I worry any more or less than my mom worried or her mom worried, but somehow parenting in today’s American culture feels like so much pressure. Our pastor used a term in his sermon this week that’s sort of been haunting me and making me evaluate everything I think about good parenting. He said there’s a new trend in parenting that’s replacing the dreaded “helicopter parent.”
Lawn mower parenting.
These are parents who instead of preparing their child for the road, walk in front of their children to make sure that the road is clear of all harm, obstructions, and difficulties. Essentially, a lawn mower parent tries to make life as easy and smooth as possible for their children.
Whoa.
At first, I laughed at this notion, but the more that I thought about it, the more that I realized that it’s true. This is what I’m seeing in my office day after day. Parents who have spent the last 18 or more years of their child’s life clearing the road, setting them up for success, going to bat for them, and ensuring they are safe and protected and they have no idea how to stop. Or they are measuring their own success as a parent on the successes of their children and they have no idea who they are anymore.
But what if we’re getting it wrong? What if by protecting our children from harm, we’re preventing them from learning, growing, and developing into the adults we hope they will be?
I think that the media plays a huge part in why we hover and why we are so terrified that something horrific is going to happen to our children. Never has information been so readily available to us and I think it’s harming our perceptions of the world. Statistics show that for middle/upper-middle class children, this country has never been safer. But I can spend less than 5 minutes scrolling through Facebook and see a news story that a child broke her femur at one of those Skyzone places or a post shared by a friend whose kid choked on a grape while snacking at the zoo. Then someone on the neighborhood app could post that a suspicious van was circling the neighborhood park today or that someone wasn’t going the speed limit through the school zone and almost hit a first grader. Ya’ll, in a matter of one social media visit, I’ve now added crosswalks, trampolines, and grapes that aren’t cut in half to my list of things my children are never allowed to do by themselves. It’s no wonder this country has an anxiety problem.
Go to any playground in America and you’ll find one of two kinds of parents – the ones who are glued to their smart phones, using the playground as a distraction for their children so they can have a much needed break {don’t judge them. Sometimes mama needs a minute}. And the ones who are on their children’s tails – making certain that they are only going down, not up, the slide, not stepping in front of someone on the swings, being kind and sharing their shovel, and are adequately hydrated. This is a small example, but really represents what I see pretty much everywhere I go. And I’m not judging at all. I’m right there with them. There are times when I’m at the park with my children and I see them encounter a conflict. I want so badly to be the parent who lets her kids figure it out {and sometimes I do}, but it’s also hard to be that parent when you’re living in a culture of other lawn mower parents. If the other child’s parent steps in, sometimes I do also, just to avoid the judgement of other moms at the park.
All of us who are in the thick of parenting are doing the best that we can with what we know. We all want the best for our children. But I think we also want our children to grow up, fall in love, find a job they love, become financially independent, and find happiness and I think that all of those things depend on a person’s ability to face some adversity and hardship and confront it with perseverance, grit, and grace. How are they going to learn those things if we spend their entire childhoods figuring it out for them? I’ll be the first to admit that I hate to see my children struggle. It’s the worst. But I also think back to my own life and what led me to where I am, and many of the most important lessons I learned were ones where I faced some hardship or criticism and I had to figure out how to get to get through it. I think this may be the root of so many of the issues society faces today – high divorce rates, dissatisfaction at work, adults living with their parents. We aren’t equipped for it.
It is my job as their mom to help them to develop independence to become self-sufficient humans. Yes, it’s easier and less messy if we always put their shoes on for them and fix their lunch and make their bed and wipe their bottom. And we can ease some of our fears and anxieties if we are always outside with them while they play or we walk with them to school everyday or put a GPS tracker on them and make them text us when they get somewhere. But preparing children to be adults is not about our comfort. It’s about equipping them with the skills to do it themselves, even if it’s hard or takes time or causes us to face some of our fears as a parent.
So how do we equip our kids for the road? I’m not completely sure. What I do know is that hovering, worrying, and solving every problem for them is not the answer. It’s going to be messy and uncomfortable and might require that I do things a little differently than what I see other moms doing. It’s going to take seeing my kids in pain sometimes, which really sucks. It’s going to mean letting my kids make mistakes and not always fixing it for them. It’s going to mean that I have to learn how to deal with my own fears and anxieties and get to a place where I don’t allow them to hold my kids back from living the life they were meant to live.
And it’s going to mean praying every single day that God would help me to get out of my own way.
Many of the themes and ideas in this article were gained by reading How to Raise an Adult by Julie Lythcott-Haims. If any of this resonates with you, I recommend that you read it. A lot was also inspired through the teachings of our church’s lead pastor Charlie McMahan.
Life After Birth 