One spring morning in 1991, my mom marched down to my middle school, a recently graded essay of mine in hand. She smoothed out the essay before the teacher, commented on the lack of red marks, and demanded to know why it was given a “B”. It should have earned, in my mother’s expert opinion, no more than a “D”. The teacher was shocked, confused, and then won over. The following week, at my mother’s request, I got my D.
This is not a contemporary problem.
Marin in the early 90s was one of the breeding grounds of helicopter parenting, following on the heels of the soccer mom phenomenon. I’d been given a good grade on a bad paper because the teachers had lowered standards to accommodate the increasing barrage of complaints from parents whose brilliant children were not receiving straight As. This was 20 years ago. It’s now worse.
In her informative and cautioning book A Nation of Wimps, Hara Estroff Marano describes the new generation of helicopter parents. The hovering is done; they now bulldoze. “Lawn mower” or “snow plow” parents attempt to smooth over obstacles for their children on the almighty quest to attain Ivy League acceptance. Marano argues that this smoothing over, rather than aiding, is actually preventing the development of emotionally stable, competent, intrinsically motivated young adults. The elimination of obstacles instead produces fragile, risk-averse adult children incapable of solving real-world problems.
Dr. Leonard Sax makes a related argument in Boys Adrift, attributing some of the modern young man’s apathy to a lack of concrete challenges – and failures – due to overprotective parenting. Lack of failure negatively insulates boys (and girls) from life and its many vicissitudes, but it also robs them of life’s greatest joys. As Aldo Leopold wrote, “Of what avail are 40 freedoms without a blank spot on the map?” Parents who eliminate obstacles also eliminate possibilities. They pave over the crevices of life where inspiration and serendipity dwell, and much is lost in that paving.
When I begin work with a new family, I make it clear that grades are not a top priority. In fact, they’re not even in my top three. My priorities when working with a student are work ethic, organization, and passion for learning. When these three are in place, good grades follow.
I’m ill-suited to give parenting advice, as I’m not a parent. However, I do know that strength is inherent in humankind, and that like anything, it grows with use and atrophies without. We’re a hardy lot; we can handle failure. But more than that, we deserve the very thing that makes this life worth living: surprise.
My middle school life has irretrievably faded into an increasingly jumbled past. The 90s, for better or worse, are gone, replaced by a time of excitement, confusion, and a future unknown. And now, as an adult navigating the real world and its real problems, I’ve never been more thankful for that D. Surprise and all.
The Misorganized Mind 