Editor's Note: We have met the enemy

“We have met the enemy and he is us.”
—Pogo comic strip, 1971

I live across the street from a little park that has a beautiful thicket of trees some of us expansively call “The Woods”. On Friday and Saturday nights, teenagers tend to hide-out in those trees and do stupid, teenager-y stuff. The police are hip to this, so they cruise by a few times after dark to drag the kids out and make them go home.

Last month, I happened to chat with one of the cops who does the nighttime round. She’s the kind of police officer you want patrolling your neighborhood: funny, tough, and really, truly, committed to the people she’s sworn to protect — especially the kids. Which is why it surprised me when she blurted out that she was furious with the parents in my neighborhood.

“The parents,” she said, “are the problem.”

She said she dreads calling parents after picking up a teenager for suspicious, dangerous or illegal behavior (all of which goes on in The Woods). Most parents outright deny that their child could have been engaged in such a behavior, she said, and some go so far as to threaten her with legal action. The more educated or wealthy the parent, she said, the more likely they are to defend their child and accuse the officer of lying or exaggerating.

“Parents really need to get a clue,” she said. “because they certainly aren’t helping their kids.”

As much as I hate to be in the “get a clue” category, I realized she’s right: we parents do need to get a clue. Because in our quest to be our children’s biggest and best advocates, a lot of us are doing more harm than good.

It’s called “permissive parenting” and it certainly isn’t new, although it has undergone so much of a facelift that many of us don’t recognize it for what it is. We think we’re being “responsive” to our children’s “emotional cues” when, in fact, a lot of us are simply allowing our kids to get away with stuff they shouldn’t.

For instance, I often encounter parents who don’t believe the rules should apply to their children. Sometimes their rule-bending requests are silly (the parent who asked that her child not be required to wear the team shirt because the child didn’t like it); other times they’re more serious (the parent who demanded that her daughter not be forced to read the “boring” books in the Honors English class because her time could be better spent reading books of her own choosing). Nearly always, the parents manage to persuade those in charge to circumvent the rules for their kids. The folks in charge give in because, frankly, it’s easier than standing their ground and risking the wrath of a parent (or the wrath of a superior for angering a parent).

These parents really believe they’re doing the right thing: they’re trying to honor their child’s feelings and, in turn, build their self esteem, which is something we parents are told to do from the moment the kids pop out of the womb.

The problem is, if kids think the rules don’t apply to them, if they think their parents will smooth all of life’s unpleasantries, they’re going to be in for a mighty rude awakening as adults. Because the world does have some rules, and more than a few unpleasantries, and both can knock you flat if you don’t know how to manage them.

That’s where we parents come in. It’s our job to teach our kids the messier aspects of life: how to slog through homework (or any kind of work) we’d rather not do; how to navigate rules with which we may not agree; how to get along with people we may not like; and how deal with disappointment, anger, frustration, and myriad other emotions that will cloud even the of sunniest days.

It’s also our job to teach them a simple rule of physics: that for every action there is an
equal and opposite reaction. In other words, if their actions aren’t appropriate, there will be consequences.

Unfortunately, too many of us are so focused on making our children’s lives “perfect” that we forget this responsibility. We spend so much time trying to ensure that our kids’ feelings are honored that we forget about the feelings of others.

That’s why we need to get a clue.

We need to make sure our children understand they are not the center of the universe; they will not always get their way. We must impart to them that their actions have consequences, and that we will not bail them out of sticky situations. Most important, we have to instill in them the belief that the Golden Rule is not merely a quaint idea, but a principle tenet of their lives.

So I’m serving my kids with fair warning: I won’t aid and abet them in trying to achieve a perfect life, because it’s a fool’s quest. I will, however, do my level best to help them learn to navigate the choppy waters of life.

And I’ll make Officer Kelley a promise: if she someday drags my kids out of The Woods and into jail for doing something stupid, I won’t rush in to defend them. Instead, I’ll let ’em sit in the clink for the night to think about their actions. Because a moment of misery goes a long way to preventing a lifetime of it.