The Darwin Method of Childrearing

blossom · January 6, 2005, 2:02pm

Two thoughts:

First to Epiphany-- I’m not sure I get your point and I certainly would not lay the blame on the colleges if you feel the arms race in EC’s is their fault. We know absolutely exceptional kids at highly ranked colleges… as well as perfectly ordinary ones. The point is that there is no such thing as a Renaissance 18 year old, all the posters here claiming their kids are just that, to the contrary. The kid who debuted at Carnegie Hall playing flute with a 4.0 average has no hand/eye coordination… no tennis team for her. The kid who patented an invention which will revolutionize the way blind people use the computer had a 630 verbal score… perfectly respectable, but low by Cal Tech standards. I am always impressed with the single-minded focus of some of the kids I read about doing stellar things. They don’t suffer from the superficial “got to be good at everything” mindset, but really seem to challenge themselves in one or two dimensions.

I think the arms race is due to insecure parenting, so if you read yourself in the descriptions of MOMZILLA, maybe it’s time to pull back. If your kid is a quadruple threat, you’re probably over the line unless you are Leonardo Da Vinci’s mom in which case more power to you.

To the OP-- I have a slightly different take, although I agree with much of what you say. I am first generation American w/parents who were not savvy about the way things work here. My siblings and I all had blue collar jobs both summers and after school growing up… nobody sat around and wondered if we would want to intern for a Senator or shadow a neurosurgeon. We have all done well and are well educated and have interesting jobs. However-- we often compare the opportunities we’ve tried to expose our kids to vs. the way we were raised, and I’m not sure my parent’s clueless parenting is something that a parent w/options would consciously choose. The good news is that we weren’t pressured and nobody blinked if we came home from school and watched General Hospital all afternoon. Both parents were at work anyway. The bad news is that some of us discovered a bit late in the game that we had skills and talents nobody knew about. One sibling was told in a mandatory graduate school class in statistical analysis that she was mathematically gifted… we fell down laughing when we heard since she’d been tracked into “dummy math” since 4th grade and nobody ever noticed or cared that maybe she could handle more challenging work. Plus, back then, people’s expectations for girls were so different. Another sibling was the classic late-bloomer; his life for sure would have been different if someone was pushing/encouraging/trying to discover latent talents. He spent two summers pushing a broom in a bakery during high school, so I often envy the kids who have parents who are making an effort to expand their horizons, even at the expense of a tiny bit of nudging.

As I said… it’s fine, and my parents did a remarkable job given the cards they’d been dealt, but it’s not a crime to try and help your kid find their niche, whether it’s academic, athletic, artistic, or whatever. Agree 100% that sometimes the parental pushing becomes pathological.

cangel · January 6, 2005, 2:14pm

I have a theory that he is not a real person, he is either an intelligent alien spacecraft from Planet SAT, a “group mind” born from this website, or a retired Nobel Prize winner doing research for a book on college admissions, game theory, political science and test taking strategies. Either way he has great advice. (I also want him to marry my daughter, but so do about 10 other Moms on this forum!) :D.

archermom · January 6, 2005, 2:27pm

My H always kidded me about re-living my life through my children…and that made me think twice while going through the college search/application process last yr with D1…and having D3 diagnosed with a subtle learning deficiency. It made me even more cognizant of acknowledging and adjusting to the differences and needs of our 3 children…and how important it was for us to assist in finding supportive/nurturing learning environments that are the right fit for each of them…in order to keep their self-esteem and personal happiness intact. The older 2 children are motivated on their own…D3 is a sweet, happy child…and has adjusted comfortably to the secondary campus of the elementary school…different than the one her sisters attended. With maturity, she is more focused this yr–with a weekly trip to a wonderful educational therapist–works hard on the assignments…but just needs more time to complete them. She practiced with the middle school volleyball team and is now attending basketball workouts…and she is well adjusted and happy…so are we! :)

bluebayou · January 6, 2005, 2:30pm

Cangel:

Xiggi’s parents were probably just mere motals – PhD-types from Princeton – toiling at the CollegeBoard in question development…until, about, when Xiggi was two, he started explaining to THEM how their questions were perfectly rational to east coast elites, but other than that, the questions were plain silly, illogical and rife with racial, economic, and cultural bias. Unfortunately, for Xiggi’s parents, the CB would have none of it, and he was banished by the CB in-the-sky to spend his time educating us mere mortals on cc!

epiphany · January 6, 2005, 2:58pm

In reply to Blossom,
Uh, no, I don’t “read myself…as an ‘insecure parent’.” (Hmmm) I read myself as responding exactly to the prompts I read in (perhaps exaggerated?) claims in tell-all college admissions books about just who & who does not get admitted to colleges. I did not make that up. I’m glad (& relieved) to hear of the examples you gave of singularly, not multiply accomplished applicants who were admitted. That is not what is published, however. What is published as real-life scenarios, & I’ve heard repeated by GC’s, & further repeated on CC, is that it’s the multiples combined with the high levels that do it. So accuse me of believing the case studies if you want to, but I will not take responsiblity for pushing my kids, because very simply, I don’t. Nor do I share with them any private unspoken anxiety that I have about how many “activities” they will need. (The older child’s a moot pt, anyway.)

My second source is the material published by the colleges themselves, currently. It’s what they say on their websites, it’s their profiles of incoming freshmen, it’s what’s in their printed material (brochures, etc.), it’s what their visiting reps say, etc., etc. Perhaps they exaggerate or lie, too. I’m not their publisher.

My earlier point was that it perhaps is the convergent RESULT of opportunities provided by educated, successful parents who have meant originally no harm but simply have helped to produce impressive offspring. This has resulted in a higher-quality base level of e.c. accomplishment than normally seen in the past, but it can lead to ever-increasing expectations as well. At the very least, the colleges, i.m.o, can be accused of capitalizing on this & “running with the ball.” I’m sorry, for the most part, I just don’t see Evil Parents in the equation driving this whole thing. I think it’s a marriage of accident + opportunity, resulting in the birth of a standard.

“MOMZILLA”? That was a little over-the-top, & not called for by my post.

weenie · January 6, 2005, 2:58pm

calmom:
Interesting post. I have found CC to be a VERY VERY good place to get advice on the particulars of the college application / financial aid processes. As my first time through this process I’ve hit some snags, which people on here have been so kind to help me out with.

But, I learned a lesson about hanging around with parents way back when the kids were in nursery school: The more the conversation leans to talking about the kids, the more of a brag-fest it becomes. I don’t think it is intentional. It just happens. Some parents (of course) are WAY worse than others. Those are the ones you carefully avoid at the baked food sale and the concerts, etc. In “real” life it is easy to shift the conversation onto something else with the other parents. On here…well…it is CC. Hopefully the parents are getting it all out here and aren’t bugging their kids too much.

NJres · January 6, 2005, 3:09pm

I am a chronically lazy underachiever and strangely enough, so are my kids!

soozievt · January 6, 2005, 3:26pm

I recognize that there are parents who push their kids and there are pressures from them, adding to stress, plus pressures from other areas…be it community, peers, school, the colleges’ standards themselves, whatever. I observe some posts on CC that reveal such pressures. There are the posts about which EC do I need to do to look good for college…how many AP courses will look best…oh, no, I only got 1520 on my SATs, should I retake?..my parents will be upset if I don’t get into an Ivy league school…I am devastated not to get into X Ivy league school…and so on and so forth.

However, I don’t think that every high achiever is a result of these external or particularly parental “pushing”. I do NOT think when you see kids who are top students or who do lots of ECs or excel at the ECs or some other thing, you can assume the parents pushed the kid to get there and the kid is all stressed out trying to “compete” and all that jazz. Some kids are internally driven. I think Epiphany mentioned this in her post too. Some kids love to learn and have high standards for themselves when it comes to their school work. They are highly motivated and nobody has to make them get good grades or do their homework as they really want to. They are not competing with their peers but with themselves. When it comes to ECs, some kids truly LOVE their activities, sometimes having gotten interested in them at a young age. Some kids do not have parents making them do EC, but rather the kids are making the parents let them do the ECs because they are not willing to give them up because of the love of that activity. Someone here once posted about love the kid you have. If you have a kid who is doing his or her best and has avg. grades or not a lot of outside interests, so be it. By the same token, if you have a kid who strives for top grades or craves academic challenge (is distraught when work is too easy), who is passionate about EC activities and begs to do them and won’t give them up when she/he gets to college, then that’s what you got. I feel like we just have to support our kids and we get what we get. I do not apologize if my kid gets excellent grades or excels in ECs. I don’t MAKE them do it. I don’t push them. I don’t ask them to apply to any particular colleges. I ask they always do their best but actually they want to do their best so it is not even truly an issue. Some kids have this internal thing going and we are along for the ride as parents and try to support what they want to do and what their goals are. I think many assume that kids who excel at something were pushed by their parents but I do not see that as necessarily being true. In fact, I find in many instances, I have had my kids PUSH ME to let them do X and Y. We do support their endeavors and goals. But they do come from within.

I think there are many parents on CC who have “gifted children” or high achievers and I don’t think we can conclude that all were in a “race” with their peers or being pushed by their parents to excel. I think some of us have to deal with what kind of kid we have and if the kid is like that, then we are along for that ride. Each kid is who she is and a high achiever is no better than the next kid but just who we have to deal with. In fact, these kids present various challenges to parents in different ways.

I know there are kids under pressure and lots of “pushing” being done but I think it is a broad generalization to assume that every kid who does real well was pushed to excel or compete. Truthfully, I am deeply saddened when I have read some posts over the years by students on CC where they shared about parents who were making them do certain things or who would only accept Ivy league admissions, and so forth. I find that very hard to relate to. By the same token, if a kid achieves that and wanted to have that goal or is just self motivated, driven, and interested, that is ok too. It is not all bad.

I don’t see the kid who is at the “top” so to speak when it comes to academics or ECs as better than the next kid but simply has different interests or goals. There is a place for everyone. A selective college is not even the appropriate goal for all kids. And all sorts of kids can be a success. Success is not measured by what college you attend or how high you achieved in your EC, etc. There are all sorts of success stories. Parents are there to support kids to reach their own personal goals, whatever they are.

The pushy parent phenomena definitely exists but I don’t like seeing assumptions that all achievers are a result of pushy parents or a competitive race. There are some kids internally driven and if you have a kid like that, and I happen to have that, that’s just what ya got and ya deal with it.

Susan

digmedia · January 6, 2005, 3:33pm

thanks, susan.

well said.

carolyn · January 6, 2005, 3:45pm

Cangel, Sorry, I already have dibs on Xiggi for MY daughter. :)

cheers · January 6, 2005, 3:50pm

Haha NJ. How did you pass the entrance exam for CC? What’s the penance for chronic laziness? :)

calmom; I appreciate your points. Not thrilled you put them into the context of a ‘beat down’, but I bet you’ve had second thoughts about that OP…

Thing is, it’s just parenting. An imperfect science if there ever was one. CC is a virtual place to learn a few tricks and read perspectives from around the globe. It’s a gab fest, not a scientific journal. Kinda fun.

And newsflash: CC kids are all different. There are those miracle babies who turn into NMF/All American athletes. Those kids exist. I know a bunch of them and they do get the pick of the Ivies. Their parents prodded them at least a little bit.

By the same token, I could prod mine until the sun came up and NOT, repeat, NOT get the same results.

I’m okay with that. (I think :)). My ‘lights’ didn’t come on until I was 20 and I still rose to an extraordinary level in my life/career/whatever.

My parents didn’t push my career. They were ambivalent about the success which sometimes took me far away from them. However, the parents and teachers of my childhood were not ambivalent about pushing me to model a certain perfect being, along with millions of other Catholic school students. Now, that’s a folly, IMHO!

sluggbugg · January 6, 2005, 4:08pm

“Making a decision to have a child – it’s momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body.” --Writer, Elizabeth Stone

I think this is where Calmom’s comments and many of the other concerns that are expressed in the Parent’s Forum are coming from, and really, it’s okay to let someone vent about an issue as important as this one without getting so defensive. Her overall point is completely valid, and it applies to every one of us, in differing degrees of intensity. I don’t think that I’m an overcontrolling parent, but if I were as detached (not indifferent) as I’d like to be from the college process, my son would be taking his SAT’s sometime in the Spring of 2011 --he graduates in '06. It would take him that long just to find his shoes and a Number 2 pencil.

How far to step back, especially with a h/s junior or senior, is the real puzzler. What is stepping back, anyway? It gets a little fuzzy when we factor in the individuals. One parent’s idea of encouragement may be seen as interference by another. A parent’s search for information about her daughter’s transcript may be called over-involved by a stressed-out counselor. The stepped back parent lets her kid miss a college deadline…right thing to do, or not? I wouldn’t, but my husband’s parents did. I guess, each one of us gets to decide when to help, when to push, and when to let go. It’s just not always so clear and easy to determine when to do what.

Meanwhile, my heart and I attended an exhibit last night for high school juniors who participated in a district-wide program for marching-to-their-own-drummer type students. I waited for my son to make his presentation to an audience of around sixty parents and thought, “There’s my heart out there waiting to give his presentation…” When it was his turn, he got up and did a fine job. He played his music and showed his beautiful B & W photographs. Proud, yes. Relieved, yes. I wanted to give him a hug, but a pretty girl in a bright purple shirt got to him before I could. My heart had a pretty good night. :)

achat · January 6, 2005, 4:09pm

My parents did not push my career or education and that helped me a lot. No pressure from them; in fact, my mom’s ambition for me was to marry asap. Nothing wrong with that, especially in India in 1974. My rebellion against that helped me go far (I hope, or at least as much as my personality would allow me).

My dad was more rational and treated me like a person.
‘Ok, she hates the current community/women’s college she goes to. I understand that perfectly. Wants more challenge. Understand that completely. Wants to go far away to an Engineering college. Well, that’s scary but taken the disadvantages of staying here and the fact that she would resent us all our lives, let’s experiment and send her away’.
I’m so glad my dad took that line of reasoning.

archermom · January 6, 2005, 4:19pm

Susan said it all. I was one those moms who kept asking the younger 2…“Are you SURE you want to study piano? You don’t have to just because your older sister did.” And because the older 2 attended an all-girls secondary school, we gave both the option of applying out to a coed environment for high school…both opted to stay. I don’t know if we were overly concerned about the children or just protecting ourselves from the “what choice did I have” syndrome. Yes, I remember experiencing those “single choice option” times with my own parents.

SBmom · January 6, 2005, 4:31pm

“It would take him that long just to find his shoes and a Number 2 pencil.”

LOL!!!

Very sweet post. :)

My mom was very hands-off. My Dad pushed me a lot, becuase I was lazy but smart and could basically ‘walk through it’ for most of my schooling… I liked getting A’s but didn’t “turn on” intellectually till about my junior or senior year, in AP classes.

My Dad & Mom were both self-made straight A scholarship kids, and Dad worked fingers to the bone providing the wherewithal for kids to attend any college of their choosing. I am very grateful he kept me focused until I outgrew my laziness. (My H might dispute that that has occured yet…)

He also opened my eyes to east coast by taking me to see colleges as a junior. He had a brilliant stroke of genius: he took me, my best friend, and my older male cousin (then 20/ as chaperone) and had us all stay on campus without him wherever we went. Thus we were guaranteed a rip-roaring good time.

I did this with my D when we visited schools. (Me in eating in front of TV in Motel 6; D with 80 kids playing “beer pong” in a frat…) I did not quite realize, until this trip, how generous it was of him not to hover; kids can be oblivious to the gifts their parents give them until it’s their turn to be parents and they see it from the other side.

digmedia · January 6, 2005, 4:38pm

sluggbugg!!! we’ve missed your :::slugghuggs::: Thanks for chiming in here and reminding us not to get so defensive.

cheers · January 6, 2005, 4:52pm

*I am very grateful he kept me focused until I outgrew my laziness. *

A parents hopes those kids who can’t find their shoes or number two pencils will be grateful–but who knows! Nice post SB.

epiphany · January 6, 2005, 5:15pm

Thank you Soozie!
Tired of the labels & the assumptions. As we’ve discussed in another thread, giftedness in a person is its own engine. A funny role reversal is illustrated below, from my senior year in high school:

I truly ENJOYED achieving. Forbidden from my parents from staying up “too late” (like me today they were also worried about teen burnout), I would dutifully go to bed at the appointed time, then raise myself in the middle of the night to study more, unbeknownst to my parents. One day I was found out by a very early rising CEO-type executive next door to us who had a long commute to work everyday. “Who’s the early-riser in your family?” he inquired. “I see a light on at 4 a.m.” Well, my parents confronted me naturally, but by that time they acknowledged that I was “too old to control.”

I have never, never blamed my parents for my own drive.

mstee · January 6, 2005, 5:34pm

Defensive? Moi?

Enjoyed your post sluggbugg.

SBmom · January 6, 2005, 5:48pm

Cheers,

As long as you haven’t been a complete psycho, they will almost certainly be grateful-- the question is, will we still be alive when they finally have their own kids & come around to “our” side?! I’d like to get me a piece of that gratitude before departing!

The Darwin Method of Childrearing

CONNECT WITH US