I love this piece by Judith Warner of the NY Times about “affluenza,” an affliction which strikes many by giving them an enormous sense of entitlement, a lust for constant new material goods and children completely incapable of being unhappy for a millisecond. I agree with most of what she says. Her piece spins off of another article which appeared in the NY Times last week about how ritzy sleep-away camps cater to very worried parents, going so far as to hire a parent liaison (like a concierge) to answer parents’ worried emails at all hours.
Yes, there are time when I do overly cater to my kids, but I know in the back of my head that they need to do things on their own and deal with difficult situations to gain the life skills they must have to survive and function in this world. I have a friend who never allows her daughter to do anything that might somehow bring stress into her life. After school classes are too stressful. Camp is too stressful. Making new friends is too stressful. The kid is 8-years old and is already learning that sitting around and doing nothing is about all that’s expected of her.
I did go to sleep-away camp as a kid, but I flew there by myself (from age 10), never had my parents visit on visitor’s day (they lived too far away) and spoke to them maybe twice throughout the whole summer. Oh, and I loved every minute of it and still hold those memories dear. We do live in a highly competitive world and feel the need to constantly protect our children. I’m guilty of it too. But, I do try to have some perspective that all of this protection may honestly be one of the most harmful things we can do.
