Hyperparenting

The day has passed and I'm sitting in front of the computer monitor trying to find a single thought in my brain to write about. It is pathetic. All the stuff I gushed out in my private journal is available and I'm not using anyone of it. In fact, I doubt that I'll be able to get off this chair as soon as the writing is done.

This spring break - I've done nothing with the kids. No trips to the zoo, the Nature Center, the art gallery, the museum - nothing. Just the writer's camp. I am getting lazy in my old age. Or maybe, I've just given up the pursuit of the supertrained children of the past. While the older boy was in the pre-preschool days, I heaved him everywhere to get him as enriched as possible. The poor child never got to toddle around doing anything remotely relaxing. He spent his time in speech classes, YMCA exercise programs, Peanut Butter and Jam playgroup sessions, Kindermusik programs, acting classes and swim classes. That older child has been overstimulated beyond reason and it is only this year that I gave up the passion for superchild creation. The younger boy, luckily failed to get this type of academic, musical and swim indoctrination and merely got snippets of classes when I had the energy to fell a tree and make logs out of it. In other words, he benefited from his older brother's experience by not having any such experiences.

Over training our kids because we want a better child product is endemic. I call it the parental expectation syndrome. We expect, we expect, we expect and the child has to produce, produce and produce. Our kids love us. They try their best to do what we want them to do. But do they really want to be mini-adults - stressed out from all these obligations before they turn 10 years old? I doubt it. It is the parents providing the fuel for this type of motion.

I've stopped hyperparenting. I don't do it any more. I'm not getting my strokes from my kids' performance any more. I'm not into the whole business of creating superchild. And certainly, while I do expect the boys to work at school, write well and take a few classes - this is a complete and drastic change from their lives a year ago when they were running from school to swimming every fricking day. I must have been crazy. Or else addicted to their exercise. Now, I'm addicted to my own exercise program. They have access to the YCMA and mostly it is up to them - what they want to do.

And on holidays - other than the writing camps - we are off duty. Nothing. We vegetate. We loaf. We meander. I remember my summer holidays when I was a kid. I'd be off to the beach every day. There, I'd be by myself or with my gang of kids and we would not be doing a single, bloody academically or physically or emotionally developmental thing at any time. We played. We rode our bikes. We fought with the other kids. We made sandcastles. We watched the ocean flatten the sandcastles. We baked in the sun. We soaked in the big tub of waves at the beach. We sat at rock pools and watched sea life stored there. I collected sea shells. I made regular trips on my bike around the neighborhood. I played with our cats at home. We never had the pressure of being enriched. And made valuable. Or performing for our parents.

We were kids. Why did I ever forget what that was like? Why would I want my kids to be adults before their time? They're kids too. Let them just be. Kids. That is.