Back when you were celebrating your 6th birthday, your mom made you a beautiful homemade princess cake and let you invite 6 friends. The party was memorable, to say the least, but not quite as extravagant as you might have liked. Now that your own daughter is about to turn 6, you’re thinking back to your own 6th birthday and all the things it was missing. Somehow, someway, you need to make sure your daughter’s party is better than yours was. After all, you can outdo your mom, right? So, you decide to go all out and throw a painting party at a local ceramic gallery, complete with goodie bags, pizza for lunch, and a princess makeover for 14 of your daughter’s closest classmates. You buy the fanciest cake you can find and give your daughter 4 presents, rather than the 1 present you routinely received for your birthday.
Back in the day, parents were doing well to send their kids to a half-day art camp or secure a membership to a neighborhood pool for the summer. Now, parents are spending what amounts to a mortgage payment to send their kids to athletic camps and refinancing their homes to install backyard in-ground pools. In today’s world, despite a slumping economy, families don’t feel inclined to ‘settle’ for a starter home and instead buy huge houses in pricey subdivisions with more bedrooms and bathrooms than they really need. All because the fixer-upper their parents worked on for years seemed inadequate by comparison.
Are You Really Trying to Outdo Your Parents?
The best advice for parents today is to stop trying to outdo your own parents! The average parent dreams of providing their child with more than what they had growing up. But the question is, to what extent are parents today really doing this? And considering where you are now and what you’ve accomplished, was your life growing up really that bad? Did having a backyard sleepover in a tent for your birthday cause you any emotional damage? Did your public school education really fail you so badly that you’re willing to pay a college tuition price for primary school? Did your parents fail you in significant ways, or were they simply living within their means?
According to author and psychologist Dan Neurath, who penned the book How to Make Peace with Your Past, trying to outdo your parents is a coping mechanism that many adults choose to deal with emotional challenges surrounding their childhood. In the book, Neurath explains that many adults who are constantly trying to outdo their parents when it comes to their own children are only furthering and reinforcing their emotional connection with their parents.
For instance, consider the father who was never encouraged or supported in pursuing a promising football career as a child. He might feel resentful that his parents didn’t send him to football camp or enroll him in the coveted local football program. In his mind, if only his parents had done more, he could have earned a scholarship or recognition for his skills. Now, as an adult, he is determined not to let the same happen to his son. He pushes his son hard and provides him with every opportunity to succeed in football. In doing so, he is continually reviving his feelings of resentment toward what he perceives his own parents didn’t do for him.
Additionally, sociologists who conducted a parenting study at Harvard have found that parents today are more focused on providing material things for their children because the structure of the family has changed. In the past, the one-wage-earner family was the norm. Today, however, families often have two parents working outside the home, meaning less time is spent with the children. To compensate, parents are offering “royalties” to make up for the lost time.
According to an article in the Huffington Post, today’s parents are giving excessively to their children. Although it might seem like children would benefit from this, the opposite is often true.
Signs You May Be Doing Too Much for Your Kids
Author Dr. Cara Barker outlines some signs that you’re doing too much for your kids:
- When your child fails to say “thank you,” not in a perfunctory way, but with genuine feeling.
- No attitude of gratitude.
- Lack of respect for gifts, as evidenced by disregard for them.
- You find yourself ‘over-explaining’ why you’ve said ‘no.’
- Fast loss of interest: ‘on to the next thing’.
- Lack of mutual exchange: one-way traffic in the giving department.
As a parent, you must ask yourself if you’re trying to outdo your parents, or if you’re trying to make up for what you may feel was lacking during your own childhood. Or perhaps, are you giving more simply because you can? There’s nothing wrong with wanting things for your child that you didn’t have as a kid. But there is a problem when you’re simply complying with your child’s wish lists in an attempt to compensate for your own perceived parental deficits or those of your parents.
Sure, we are living in a different world today than when you were young. And looking back on your childhood, it’s easy to see where your parents went wrong and the mistakes they made. Your children will learn from YOUR mistakes as well. This is the never-ending cycle of parenthood. However, it’s unnecessary to constantly feel compelled to do just a little more than your mom and dad did for you. Sometimes, allowing your child to go without, to have boundaries, and to experience limits is the best way to foster them into responsible adults.
