Strollerderby : independence

Is It OK to Hate Your Kid's Sport?

Miriam Axel-Lute — Thu, 28 May 2009 15:30:00 GMT

Don't mess with the soccer moms. It might be a bit of a hackneyed sentiment in this post-Palin era, but as Sarah Rain from Delmar, NY, found out when she wrote a post titled "At Least It's Only 8 Weeks Long" on the local paper's blog for her town discussing her dislike of soccer season, the vicious soccer mom isn't gone.

You'd think from the vituperative comments that she'd said she hated her kid or couldn't be bothered to want to do anything with him at all. What she actually said, quite clearly, is that she believes that kids develop better social skills and autonomy from informal pick-up games, but since that's not really happening for her son she's dragging herself through soccer season because she thinks the benefits outweigh the costs, though all the while she's quietly hoping he doesn't fall in love with the sport.

"Mustering up the interest in something your child does is a challenge? How self absorbed can one person be?" writes one person, deriding informal games as "a can babysitting your child."

"The writer’s desire for 'informal games with their friends' means 'I don’t have to be there' . . . they are only young and “ours” for too short a period of time . . . relish the moment!" writes another. (Or, you know, she could actually believe that informal games and time not being hovered over by adults are better for children's development, an argument that has a lot going for it and is distinctly less selfish than trying to soak up the time kids are "ours".)

Another rhapsodizes about how much she loves dragging herself out of bed on Saturday mornings to pack snacks for games, clearly implying that this is the proper attitude of motherhood.

I happen to know that the writer was much amused by all the kerfuffle (and probably courted it on purpose), but what she wrote was hardly extreme. If these are the attitudes of the people she has to hang out with when her son's at soccer practice, I don't wonder that she dreads it. Is this level of martyrdom-to-the-planned-activity-gods attitude really so pervasive? It makes me scared to consider organized sports for my kids.

Photo CC by Chip Griffin via Flickr.

More by this author:

Police Called on 10-Year-Old Riding Train Alone

Miriam Axel-Lute — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 17:00:00 GMT

The nervous nellies strike again. This time a 10-year-old boy was riding on the Long Island Railroad to see his friend last Friday. His friend's family was going to pick him up at the station. He'd done the ride dozens of times before. LIRR has no policy about what age is too young to ride alone, but his mom had talked to them before his first ride, and they said 10 sounded fine.

But not to one hovering conductor, who not only called the police, but wouldn't talk to the boy's mother when he called her after being harassed. Mr. conductor then held up the train at the station the boy was traveling to and wouldn't let him leave with his friends' parents until the police came and basically told the guy he was overreacting and should chill.

The scary thing is, these days, one could just as easily believe the police taking the conductor's side and charging the parents with negligence or some such nonsense. I've heard of some very scary official reactions to children who were well-trained in safety precautions doing exactly what they were supposed to do with the full knowledge, but not immediate presence, of their parents.

This particular story was posted over at Free Range Kids, a site devoted to reclaiming kids' rights to move about freely in the world. Lenore Skenazy, the columnist who founded it, writes that at the same time as she was being depicted as a devil in the media for writing about the freedom she gave her son, individuals kept coming up to her and recounting what they'd been able to do as a kid and how much they'd valued it.

It's true for me: I walked alone to the bus stop starting at 6 or 7, school itself at 9, and wandered my block and then my neighborhood freely from around then too. And the world actually hasn't gotten anymore dangerous since then, at least not in any of the ways people cite when they say this is a bad idea. (Of course even when I was a teenager and my mother told me to take a bus to the mall, the people around her reacted as if she'd asked me to go panhandle outside a strip club. But sadly, that was probably at least as much to do with the class difference of who takes short-distance buses vs trains in NJ as with stranger paranoia.)

What about you? Are you more worried about what might happen to your kids (or you) if they are given their freedom, or if they aren't?

Photo by Spring Dew.

More by this author:

Related Posts:

Political Nanny: Obama Gives MoveOn a Stern Talking To

Madeline Holler — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 19:27:00 GMT

Whoa! In a speech today from Indepdence, Mo., home to Harry Truman, Democratic candidate Barack Obama gave one of his biggest organizers and supporters hell.

The candidate called MoveOn.org's ad about General Petraeus, whom the liberal group dubbed "General Betray Us," a "treadbare argument."

Obama was in Missouri to deliver a big speech on patriotism -- defending his own, calling bullshit on anybody who questions another's. Political Nanny can't wait to hear how MoveOn responds. After all, they endorsed Obama early in the primaries -- much to the dismay of Hillary Clinton supporters. And they've organized and raise gobs of people and tons of money on behalf of the candidate.

Hmmm. Quite a demonstration of this new politics stuff. Fall out and responses will no doubt be interesting.

Here's a little more of what he said (from The Hill):

The Illinois senator said politics too often seems “trapped in old, threadbare arguments” that he called “caricatures of left and right.”

This, Obama added, was “most evident during our recent debates about the war in Iraq, when those who opposed administration policy were tagged by some as unpatriotic, and a general providing his best counsel on how to move forward in Iraq was accused of betrayal.”

“None of us expect that arguments about patriotism will, or should, vanish entirely; after all, when we argue about patriotism, we are arguing about who we are as a country, and more importantly, who we should be,” Obama stated in his speech from Independence, Mo. “But surely we can agree that no party or political philosophy has a monopoly on patriotism.”

Yes, but was he wearing a flag pin on his lapel?

[via Salon]

Photo: CNN.com

Should We Let Our Kids Be "Free Range"?

Kelly Mills — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 13:32:00 GMT

You might recall the controversy that got kicked up by a New York Sun reporter's account of allowing her nine-year-old to ride the subway alone. She was both pilloried by people who compared her behavior to child abuse, and praised by people who want more freedom for their kids. In response to the whole thing, she started a blog called "Free Range Kids," to promote the idea that kids need the same independence and freedom previous generations enjoyed.

While this gets hyped as a battle between helicoptor parents and free range parents, it is true that many kids are not allowed to do the same things their parents did at the same age, like walk or bike to school or go to the park without an adult. And as the free range advocates point out, a good deal of this may just be due to the increased media attention on abductions and crime, while crime has actually dropped in most instances. I tend to fall more on the free range side, though putting theory into practice is always a different matter when my six-year-old is involved. What do you think: Are we basically stalking our kids out of their independence? Or are the risks of allowing solo activities not worth it?

Attachment Parenting Interview: Oh, the Righteousness

Kelly Mills — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 15:14:00 GMT

I don't believe attachment parenting causes children to become weak, dependent little wussies who have to be held by a parent before they can fall asleep in their dorm bed at college. No, I could care less how long anyone co-sleeps or carries junior around in the sling. But you know what I think is occasionally an unfortunate side effect of attachment parenting?

Self-righteousness.

Not all AP folks are judge-y, and in fact, the ones I know are pretty mellow. And there's Ferberizers and whatever-ers who get righteous too. But when I read the interview with Dave Taylor, author of the Attachment Parenting blog, the very first line was "The core philosophy behind AP is that instead of trying to push your children away and make them independent beings as soon as possible, you hold them and nurture them instead." And this certainly isn't the first time I've heard stuff along those lines from the Sears camp and co.

Annoyed now. Okay, now as a non-APer, I do not recall pushing my child away in order to make her independent ASAP. I do remember moving her out of our bed at six months so that I could get some sleep. Also did it so that she could fall asleep without me so that I could go out sometimes in the evenings. In other words, it was more about my independence than hers.

I think people who are into AP should feel as free as possible to do AP stuff without getting slammed with judgment. And I'd really like it if some of the zealots of the movement could chill out on the crib trauma rhetoric. Because we all gotta do what works best for our families. Now put that in your sling and snuggle it.