The Over-Parenting Crisis
A leading attachment parenting writer says, enough already.
by Katie Allison Granju
April 16, 2007
Parents' increasing obsession with creating a totally germ-free environment for children offers an instructive example of the way over-parenting is counterproductive. Fifteen years ago, when I brought my first baby home from the hospital, his father and I were instructed to keep him away from obviously sick people during the newborn period. After that, our pediatrician told us that exposure during infancy and childhood to household and environmental germs was part of building a healthy immune system.
Fast forward to 2007, as parents now attempt to create an artificially germ-free childhood. Not only do they avoid exposing their kids to sick people, they surround their children with antibacterial soaps and washes. They buy toys and baby gear coated in space-age, microbe-resistant surfaces, and trips to the grocery store require a specially made "shopping cart cover" meant to prevent little Liam or Ava from encountering anyone else's bacteria.
But medical experts are pleading with parents to stop with the anti-germ hysteria because rather than preventing illness in children, it's actually causing it, encouraging the growth of treatment-resistant strains of bacteria, and preventing kids' exposure in the healthy doses required to grow a strong immune system.
Yep, that's right, it turns out that regular, old, everyday germs are good for kids. So is regular,When parents micromanage children's lives, everyone loses. old dirt, disappointment, boredom, frustration, conflict, and the occasional playground accident. All of these help children to develop their own coping skills, creative and spiritual core, and sense of self.
When parents micromanage children's lives, overly investing themselves in their kids, everyone loses. Mothers and fathers lose themselves in their roles as parents, while kids never find themselves.
So here's my unsolicited advice to parents: take a step back. Relax. Enjoy. Your baby will sleep without an expert consultant coming to your house. Your toddler will eventually leave diapers behind. I promise. The Graco stroller won't mark your child — or you — as a loser.
Let your preschooler play in the dirt, and your kindergartener deal with the classmate who pinches her.
And for God's sake, let the baby figure the spoon out for herself.
©2007 Katie Allison Granju and Nerve Media
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