Overdoing It

It happened again on the way to the grocery store. “Mommy,” Alex said, “is Darth Vader bad?”

“Uh,” I said, “yeah…only later he remembered what it meant to be good, and he’s the one who finally killed the REALLY bad guy.”

“Is the really bad guy the one who doesn’t let Yoda get back up on the stage?”

My mouth opened on nothing as I tried to figure out which way to take this conversation.

First of all, what was he talking about? Was he referring to the fight in the Senate chamber between Yoda and the Emperor? And if he was, how the HECK did he know about that? I’m sure I’ve never played that scene for him, even on YouTube.

Not to mention, how much of the complex relationships spun out in the Star Wars universe should I try to explain? The bad guy who is the good guy’s father, whose twin sister is a princess of a different planet…

Christian gets exasperated with me because I can’t seem to offer a simple answer to any of Alex’s questions. My trouble is that I am constantly searching for deeper understanding. Background, foreground, periphery and context—I want to know it all, and I tend to lose the perspective of what facts are actually necessary for a child’s understanding.

Overdoing it is all too easy in parenting. On Friday, I shared an interesting article on over-parenting. If I had to choose one side of the debate, I’d go with the “slow parenters”. But that’s too easy an answer. For one thing, truth lies in the middle on almost all things. Maybe the world is different today. People drive faster. News is around-the-clock. Kids don’t play outside as much, which means the protection of numbers has been lost. Air conditioning drives people indoors, and people hang out inside, on computers, instead of outside, with each other, so we don’t know our neighbors as well as we once did.

Then again, families have always felt pressure from outside sources. The major influences are eternal: parents, in-laws, peer pressure. Yes, I said peer pressure. Who doesn’t look at the woman and kid beside us at preschool pickup and think, “My kid talks more clearly, but hers has better gross motor skills”? What are the developmental milestones and growth percentiles we obsess over? Peer pressure is and always has been a part of life, even—perhaps especially—for adults. After all, kids may feel the pressure, but many of their decisions are limited by the structure of their life, which is controlled by their parents. Adults have the power to shape our world any way we want.

I will never be a “helicopter parent,” because I don’t hang around. Preschool is a great experience for Alex, but the major family benefit is getting him out of my hair for a while. We struggled with the co-op vs. standard preschool decision (cheap vs. less time commitment), and eventually time won out. I, like my parents before me, am quite ready to let my kids move on to the next stage.

But that doesn’t mean I have it all figured out. Last night I took Alex to a birthday party, where he sat in the corner and refused to play dodge ball with the other kids. He didn’t understand how to play, and he would—not—go. Not with me, not with the hosting mommy, not when the guest of honor asked him specifically. Only when they started serving food did he go hang out with his buddies.

I still don’t know what the appropriate parental response was. Should I have left? Sat in the van for an hour and a half, made him figure it out himself? I remember all too well what it feels like to be in an uncomfortable situation. Believe it or not, I’m really an introvert. I do fine in large company as long as I know my role. But in unstructured social environments, I clam up.

So I stayed with him…got him some of the “grownup food,” sat on the bleachers with him… I tried to find balance by going to talk to some of the other moms, in the hopes that he would screw up the courage to join in the party if I wasn’t hovering near.

Whatever parenting philosophy you choose, it’s simpler to follow if you follow it 100%. There’s so much gray in the world, we want to classify as many things in black and white as possible. I think this is a big part of political polarization. But it’s especially true of parenting. We read books that promise a “foolproof way to get your child to…” We label ourselves “attachment” parents or “Babywise” parents. But the truth is that since every child is different, and every child is constantly changing, there is no one “right” parenting method. Parenting will never be a simple matter. It requires thought, near-constant problem-solving, and sacrifice, not to mention patience. Parenthood is the supreme soul-stretcher. And that is precisely why it is so good for us.