If The Introduction Starts Off Like This...

My friend Michelle read a book for a class titled, "A Nation of Wimps: The High Cost of Invasive Parenting," and blogged about it. For those of you that know me know I'd immediately have to borrow the book. I had a few minutes yesterday between some meetings and read the introduction.

Here's a sample:

"As I explain in the pages ahead, it starts with the hothouse conditions in which so many middle-class and upper-middle-class children are now being raised and the obsessiveness with which parents engineer their children's lives. That's because social standing, once something kids inherited from their parents, has become something parents now take from the achievements of their children. But the cost of turning tots into trophies is high: the developmental needs of the young are subordinated to the psychological needs of adults; perfectionism is born from the pressure and emerges as an ultimately self-defeating standard."--author Hara Estroff Marano.

There were some bullet-pointed observations that the author will develop in the coming chapters with stuff like...

...depriving kids of opportunities to discover themselves (because we overschedule and overmonitor--a unique separation, I thought), parents also keep them from eventually having their own shot at happiness.
...(on just letting kids play). "It's the only activity that directly prepares people for dealing with life's unpredictability. Delay play and you delay adulthood."
..."Overparenting isn't just bad for kids--it has terrible effects on adults." The author lists things "disproportionate investment of emotions, finances and time" which can "erode marital bonds." She also lists the damage done to teachers in "educational discourse" as well as mentioning other areas affected by "the destructive culture of parenting."

Oh, man. I know that several pastors, youth pastors and professional educators read this blog consistently.

Ready for some serious discussion on parenting, patrons?