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Failure is the Quickest Route to Success
For those who felt helicopter parenting was too detached, there’s lawnmower parenting. Your kids have problems with their teachers? Go down and straighten them out. Your son’s homework is too hard? Do it for him. Your daughter didn’t make the cheerleading squad? Threaten to sue the school. Lawnmower parents mow down the obstacles in their kids’ paths to ensure nothing blocks their smooth ascent to success. But in the end, it does more harm than good. How do I show my love? I let my kids fail.
I grew up with free-range parents before there was a name for it. Illegal immigrants who struggled with English, my mother ran a factory and my father worked as a bus boy. No one cushioned my blows or even checked my homework; I made the meals, I worked in my mother’s factory after school and took care of my younger brother and sister. My parents kept their heads down and made money.
Instead of forcing him to study or criticizing the teacher, I let him build his self-esteem his own way.
Sure, my mother’s expectations were not what mine are for my own children. Because I could sew hems on up to 6,000 pieces a day, I was told I would make a good wife someday. No one…
