<p>I’ve never heard the phrase ‘donkey parenting’ before, but we are having a weird experience this year. Our daughter is on the school marching band and there are many parents who attend every football game, every musical competition, even the out of state ones that involve driving 300 miles and staying in the hotel. THey also volunteer at all the summer practices and volunteer to pack the vans for the out of state competitions, haul the equipment onto the field for the half-time show. At first, I felt terribly guilty because my husband and I weren’t terribly invested in the activity and didn’t want to spend all OUR time doing it – fine for our kid, but honestly we are adults who have our own lives. After watching from the sidelines and occasionally participating, I now find myself thinking that the parents aren’t really doing all of this for the kids anyway. THey are enjoying the socializing and the traveling and that’s fine – but honestly I’d rather the kids carried their own equipment onto the field and packed the vans themselves. One of the dads referred to it the other day as ‘performing service for our kids’. THat seemed backwards to me. My kids should be performing service for me – washing dishes and mowing the lawn. </p>
<p>There are all sorts of way to parent. I feel that as long as everyone is happy with the process (kids, parents, teachers, etc) then there is really no harm done. Personally, I was more of a hands off parent. S would occasionally joke that he was “feral” since he could basically do what he wanted in HS. I asked if he wanted more rules and parental supervision, and of course, he didn’t really. But, of course, we did step in if one of the kids had problems that they couldn’t solve on their own. And there were a few occasions with each kid. But the helicopter thing never “fit” for me.
I guess my parenting philosophy, no matter what your style, is “Don’t worry, be happy!”</p>
<p>Nobody is going to change their ways based on what others are doing. No way…</p>
<p>Megpmom brings up an interesting point about a societal criterion for evaluating parenting: is there harm being done? So long as her S was doing well as per her assessment, the parenting wasn’t broken and didn’t need fixing. Now if her S had developed a psychological disorder stemming from neglect, had become a drug addict, a criminal, had dropped out of school, or was bullying his classmates and the like, then a judgment of the parenting may be warranted. Even that is risky, however, as children do have free will and sometimes some wicked kids are raised in good families where the other siblings are all fine.</p>
<p>That is one reason I question the article. Where is the proof of child-damaging college-related pressure? She claims that the fact our children are riddled with anxiety and are medicated more than ever is the evidence of her point… Is there proof that either is due to parental college aspirations? There are higher rates of autism now as well of ADHD. Did bad parenting cause that too? </p>
<p>Of course there is evidence of child-damaging pressure on kids. It may not manifest itself as “college-related” when the kid is younger, but it’s not as if this type of parent suddenly appears during junior year of high school.</p>
<p>I don’t think it’s useful to bring in conditions like autism and ADD, which have nothing to do with outward pressure from parents. Perhaps we should look at suicide among the college-bound age group. Remember Newton, Mass. last year? This is an insightful article from a parent:</p>
<p><a href=“http://commonhealth.wbur.org/2014/02/newton-suicide-stress”>http://commonhealth.wbur.org/2014/02/newton-suicide-stress</a></p>
<p>This piece, slightly older, discusses the pressure among young Asian-American women, who have higher-than-average suicide rates as well:</p>
<p><a href=“Push to achieve tied to suicide in Asian-American women - CNN.com”>http://www.cnn.com/2007/HEALTH/05/16/asian.suicides/</a></p>
<p>The reason I brought up ADHD was that the author mentioned over-medication, and that diagnosis is usually what is named responsible for the increased medication of our kids.</p>
<p>I think that sometimes when there are enough people overparenting, it can fundamentally change the nature of the afterschool activity, class, etc. for all involved. When we lived in Fairfax County, it was impossible for a child to do advanced math unless the family could afford a tutor. THe teachers all expected that every family had ‘previewed’ the math with the child over the summer with a tutor, and that every family had a tutor on speed dial for the remainder of the year. The teaching was different because of this expectation and families where the kids were smart but not upper middle class were effectively shut out of the program. We ultimately moved away from the area because we felt as though we couldn’t “afford” to send our child to a public school. A public school. </p>
<p>In the insane marching band our child is in, there are practices every day for the month of August. Kids who have to work during the summer effectively can’t join the activity. The excessive parental participation requirements, the constant fund-raising, and the fact that there are multiple practices scheduled during times when there is no school transportation available have served to shut out a lot of kids – those whose parents have to work and can’t get them to practices, those people who can’t afford to buy their child a car to drive to practices, people who can’t leave work at 11 AM on a Tuesday morning for a parent meeting, etc. </p>
<p>My sister is a single parent with several kids and she has basically said that there are whole classes of activities that her kids can’t do – again, in a public school – because she can’t afford the fees and she can’t afford to leave work to put in the necessary, required parent hours. (Band costs four hundred dollars a season where we live; entries to band competitions are ten dollars a person; riding the parent bus to the competition is one hundred dollars plus hotel, etc.)</p>
<p>This does seem like a case where a parent’s zeal to help their child does end up hurting other kids and other families, if it changes the nature of the activity in a way that it becomes exclusionary.</p>
<p>I see this as a valid point @Momzie </p>
<p>this is a good thing to talk about, really, how this can impact parents and opportunities for other kids.</p>
<p>We were donkey parents. I never had much invested emotionally in what my kids did or did not do, but I will admit that I wanted them to DO things. They did. They chose, but we did expose them to a wide variety of activities in the Arts, Athletics, whatnot, at a young age and let them kind of whittle it down through their choices and aptitudes over time. They ended up in disparate ECs at strong levels of participation. Hence, we became donkey parents.</p>
<p>I enjoyed those years and now I’m glad they are over.</p>
<p>But it is a shame if there are kids shut out of participation because of parent zealotry. We never faced that, but objectively, I could see where that could happen, and where it may have happened in our community, as well.</p>
<p>Had I not had my husband, a major donkey parent, involved, in the schlepping, I think my kids ECs would have been effected. </p>
<p>Here is an example.</p>
<p>Last night around 10 pm, my son was finishing up his lab report. He started complaining about the data being bad, and it was too late to contact his lab partner. He was sent to bed.</p>
<p>5:30 am, I woke him up and did some internet searches for him, and helped him find information on the lab. He reviewed it, and it turned out his lab group wrote the wrong equation down, so the data was fine but he had to redo some calculations.</p>
<p>I stayed up with him for an hour to make sure he stayed awake and finished his work. He has a learning disorder so sometimes he does have a tough time with lab reports in particular.</p>
<p>The way I look at it, it’s a small price to pay if the result is he hands his lab in on time. And oh, he is NOT going to be allowed to do any activities this weekend other than mandatory school ones, so he can get the lab report done on Sunday.</p>
<p>As for driving kids around: my parents drove me to ballet for one lesson, and I attended a weekly cultural program for six weeks, once. Both were in my town. My brothers did Little League, for up to two years each.</p>
<p>Conversely, my oldest plays sports, so we usually have six weekend and sometimes three day trips to tournaments. The younger two don’t have that, but both do marching band which luckily is free in our town and they have trips every other year.</p>
<p>The thing that bothers me is the neglectful parents in my town, who drop their kids off on the way to work, and can’t take the five minutes you need to drive into the school parking lot and get in the drop-off line. They drop their kids off on the street, kids are darting in between cars on the street and in the parking lot. It is extremely dangerous, but mom can’t be late for work! I don’t think it is over-parenting to make sure your child survives the trip from your car to the school doors.</p>
<p>See? And THAT is what I consider useless criticism!</p>
<p>Maybe mom CAN’T be late for work. how do you know?</p>
<p>Labeling a working parent as neglectful is just judgemental and less than helpful. </p>
<p>I think a lot of donkey parents make the ECs available for the kids whose parents can’t or don’t want to get involved. For example, in my son’s Boy Scout troop, all the adult leaders were volunteers. The last scoutmaster was a guy who kept serving in that role even after his son graduated from high school. There were some parents who just dropped their kids off and didn’t help out–although some of them were donkeying for different activities for different kids. It probably does serve as a social outlet for some parents, but some people are just outgoing and altruistic.</p>
<p>" Maybe mom CAN’T be late for work. how do you know?"</p>
<p>There is a “No Stopping No Standing” sign on the street - do they have to say “No Discharging of Passengers” as well? These parents are driving Lexuses and Cadillacs, I doubt that they were hourly workers who would be docked. Most are SAHMs in my town (not me).</p>
<p>It is extremely dangerous, and a crossing guard was hit right near that intersection end of last year.</p>
<p>There is traffic from three directions coming in to that intersection.</p>
<p>To be honest, if mom CAN’T be late for work, the kid should WALK to school it is a lot safer. There are sidewalks on all sides, but the parents let the kids out into the street and the kids don’t go onto the sidewalk, they have to run across the street (because of course they are LATE to school too).</p>
<p>We have a two-career family and we struggle with this, but we don’t jeopardize our children’s safety. Let them walk, it is much safer than having them dart between cars. Parents can drop their child off a hundred feet from the intersection, and let their kid go on the sidewalk and not in the street.</p>
<p>Probably related to my anger at this is that my great-uncle accidentally killed a girl when he was in traffic, and she darted out between cars and in front of him just as traffic started moving. He ended up losing his job and could never work again. They moved across country to avoid how negatively he was treated.</p>
<p>These busy parents could just leave earlier to get there in time…</p>
<p>We had a case a few years ago in which a teacher was struck and killed outside a middle school, in similar situations to what you describe. And yes, it was a frazzled parent who killed her.</p>
<p>I could never understand people who did things like this (let their kids out in a no-stopping zone, holding everyone else up, etc.). I got a little insight when I read a book by Aaron James, with a title that can’t be printed on CC, examining people who essentially never feel that the rules apply to them. I will note that some of the people who do these things appear, in many ways, to be pretty good parents, although I’ve observed that their kids seem to pick up some of the same attitudes and behaviors.</p>
<p>^^^Occasional police presence in front of the school can discourage that. Traffic cops could make a ton of money in front of my kids’ school!</p>
<p>I live in a community where student testing is stressed from the minute they step into elementary school. Even if you, as a parent, try to keep the stress down and talk about options other than college or “less selective” colleges, this is drowned out by the messages from the schools themselves. I want my DS to be less stressed by school and to know all of the options open to him. However, when the message from the school is that you have to be in the top 7-10% of your class to even get in to the state universities, the stress and competition are impossible to avoid. </p>
<p>I find the article interesting because I don’t think the pressure is always just from the parents. It is a combination of factors including school, your location, parents, and peers. I just try to minimize the stress by letting my DS know that there are always alternatives, letting him enjoy the EC that he has chosen for himself, and listening when he needs to vent. I say try because I don’t always succeed and get caught up in the craziness myself sometimes. </p>
<p>“There is a “No Stopping No Standing” sign on the street - do they have to say “No Discharging of Passengers” as well? These parents are driving Lexuses and Cadillacs, I doubt that they were hourly workers who would be docked. Most are SAHMs in my town (not me).”</p>
<p>I’m confused. I thought you were dissing them because “mom can’t be late for work.” Now you are saying they are mostly SAHMs?</p>
<p>OK, I still say that what others are doing is nobody’s business. However, I also never agreed to the fact that it is somebody eelse’s fault that one cannot puruse some personal goal(s), including the goals for their children, so I am a complete loss with the followint comment (besides the fact that this mother has all rights to do what is appropriate BY HER in her circumstances:
“My sister is a single parent with several kids and she has basically said that there are whole classes of activities that her kids can’t do – again, in a public school – because she can’t afford the fees and she can’t afford to leave work to put in the necessary, required parent hours.”
-Single parenting is a choice
-I understand the money constraint (which is also a choice)
-I do not understnad a time constraint based on my personal experience taking my D. to her activities after day of full time work. First, you choose the job with flexible hours, again, it is a choice. Second, to be able to choose job like this, you go thru extensive education (in my case was concurrent with having a child and a full time jobs that piad for my BS and MBA)
Third, it is a choice to organize your time around your kid(s) activities. Also while I was taking my kid everywhere, I noticed that many run car pools and also many bring siblings to the same activities. So, while number of kids is a personal choice, under certain circumstances all these kids will not have a free choice about theri activities, it will involve negotiation between them to choose the common ones. I cannot imagine anybody having more than 5 activities concurrently. My D. at the pick of her confusion had 5 for several years, then they started falling out. But she always had 3 all thru HS and one of them actually involved ton of money, 3 hrs of daily praciteces, including weekends and 2/day during summers, many out of town meets. Who was taking her everywhere? I, me, myself, nobody else besides these 3. My H. responsibility was to drive us to out of town meets. There is no time constraints if one is a full time working parent. You are at work while they are at school and in after school care and doing their homework. Yes, D’s day was from 7am until 10pm and many days we did not stop at home at all. But it was her choice and I was just ready to accomodate it. Since my only requirement was that she is in bed by 10 pm, her homework during weekday was done primarily at school. It was a lot of planning, since she had to do a lot “ahead” work during weekend. This skill of time management cane so handy during her college years and Med. School years. Thinking back, if she was not involved in extrememly time consuming sport and her other ECs, including many at school that I actually was not involved at all, I do not think that she would be as successful academically and as outgoing socially as she developed to be.
I guess, over-parenting worked very well in our case. </p>
<p>LOL - good catch. They are extremely active volunteers for the most part, but yeah, now I am wondering why they are in such a hurry.</p>
<p>Maybe I should have said “mom wouldn’t be late for her stories”. I tend to take the positive view that all women work unless they have some kind of major disability or are too old. Same as for men.</p>
<p>I hope to be too rich to work some day.</p>
<p>“OK, I still say that what others are doing is nobody’s business.”
Miami, I believe you should have stopped right there. </p>