We fear that those hours of Bubble Guppies have forever stunted their potential. Hopped up on a newsfeed of Amber Alerts and lurking sexual offenders, we never let them out of our sight.
Are we the worst generation of parents ever?
As with the non-question of working versus staying at home, financial realities often dictate domestic choices, and most parents are operating on instinct, just getting by, bento boxes be damned. But when we do navigate modern parenting mores, the take-away is clear: Good enough is never good enough. Success for our kids seems to be measured in degrees of uncommon achievement that will set them apart.
And that pulsing fear seems to be wreaking serious damage on our kids. Toronto-based psychologist Alex Russell has identified an anxiety epidemic among young people. Statistics Canada backs him up: In a survey of Canadian mental health, more youth ages 15 to 24 met the criteria for mood and substance-use disorders than any other age group.
Ninety percent of Canadians ages 18 to 24 say they are excessively stressed, according to a Sun Life Financial Canada survey. Many stressed kids end up at the office door of Julie Lythcott-Haims, a former dean of freshmen and undergraduate advising at Stanford University. Over the past decade, she noticed a new nervous tenor among students. These kids emerge less curious and more closed-minded—not the happy kids their parents are trying to mould.
A study by sociologists at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga discovered a correlation between helicopter parenting and students who take medication for depression and anxiety.
Of course, those young adults are the offspring of late-generation boomers, kids who had their self-esteem fluffed like throw pillows and got trophies just for showing up. Our kids will be totally different than those special snowflakes, right?
Our kids may, in fact, be the most special-est snowflakes of all—or at least the most broadcast. How many adults do you know whose profile picture is of their kid? This very public enmeshment of parent and child is perhaps the most dramatic shift in how children are raised. The scramble for closeness is well-intentioned; parent-child intimacy intuitively feels better than the cool, hierarchical distance of preceding generations.
Study: How millennial parents are preparing their kids for a life online
We did not win the spelling bee or get into Harvard. Our children are not our reflections, and their lives are their own, not a do-over for us. Our narcissism can quickly become theirs. With a demographic shift toward smaller families and a birth rate hovering around 1.
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And as one or two child-free friends are happy to point out, kids today can be overindulged brats. Parents may not disagree: These days, millennial parents are obssessing about their kids' online footprints more than the prints from their actual widdle feetsies. But it's not because they're looking to make the next Scarlet Snow Belo. Parents say they're concerned about their children's future digital presence for their own good.
Of course, millennial parents are only speaking from experience, since millennials are the first generation of digital natives who have grown up with the internet. Education on how to represent oneself online is a top priority for parents. We use cookies to ensure you get the best experience on Esquiremag. Javascript must be enabled to use this site.
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It's become a weary trope: Millennials , we are often told, are a pampered cohort sulking in their childhood bedrooms or aimlessly couch surfing in search of personal fulfillment. It's easy to get all judgy about the terrible 22s. But that's just part of the problem. What's truly terrible isn't our kids — it's us, the hyper-attentive parents who made them. Consider the oft-quoted profundity that parents should give children both roots and wings.
We seem to have neglected part two. Allow me, please, a moment of time travel. Like half the year-olds I knew, I once hopscotched through Europe after college without my parents knowing my itinerary. We had not one transatlantic phone call the entire summer and stayed in touch via postcards and aerograms. When I became a mother myself, I asked my mom if she'd been worried about unsophisticated, North Dakota me cavorting continents away. Her answer was no because she considered me to be reasonably mature.
When I returned, I settled 1, miles away from my parents, without the benefit of their help to find an apartment and job. Such quaintness is so boomer commonplace, I mention it only for context as I wonder how a generation of rugged individualists aching for adulthood became parents who can't let go. Here's the grinding truth: In ways our Greatest Generation parents never did, we lust for our children's continuing attention.
We love to hang out with our offspring and savor every intimate detail of their lives. As a result, we have all but eliminated the generation gap. Ray in Not Quite Adults: Modern technology makes it easy to provide all of the above. For many parents, it's standard operating procedure to not only engage their kids in constant text conversation but monitor their every wink via Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and a variety of location-tracking apps, allowing these parents to swoop in with roadside assistance at a moment's notice.
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My friend Claire was recently alarmed when her son in Brooklyn Instagrammed a picture of his car with a freshly bent bumper. I don't think so. We are extremely close and speak multiple times a day. She's always been glad to hear what we have to say. But now that our concerns are about her relationship , our daughter has told us to butt out.
In recent conversations, she's actually hung up on us. Others intervene with online services such as TheJMom.
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Parents often expect to be similarly involved in their children's professional lives. Women's Real Power at Work. You get the picture. Parenting young adults can seem more complicated than the toddler years because the challenges of this life phase — committing to a career or a relationship — have big stakes. But this has always been the case, even when parents were more hands-off. Overparenting has its roots in a rush of events and cultural responses more than 35 years ago. In , 6-year-old Etan Patz disappeared while walking to his school bus, instilling a terror of kidnapping in a nation of parents.
Get free help preparing and filing your taxes. Meanwhile, the self-esteem movement encouraged educators to feed their charges feel-good affirmations, and the term "helicopter parent" was born.