Are we bubble wrapping our children?

by Christina Sbarro (Subscribe to Christina Sbarro's posts) Sep 29th 2007 12:00PM

There is a line in Charlotte's Web (which I read every year to my first graders, and just re-read again yesterday) where E.B. White stops narrating the story, and turns for a moment to the reader. "Children always hold on tighter than their parents think they will," he says, in reference to a high arcing rope swing that sails out from the Zuckerman's barn, but also in reference to the way parents tend to over-protect their kids. "Be careful," we chirp. "Watch out." We can't help ourselves.

With this in mind it is shocking to read about the way childhood was experienced by 8-year-old Fern Arable and her brother Avery, who live their days unfettered, for the most part, by adults. They go to the pond, to the barn, to the haymow, and to the county fair more or less unsupervised.. They tote frogs in their pockets, and bring air rifles to school; they are at large, outdoors, every day after school. They show up for dinner, but in between, their activities are of their own creation. And though the characters are of course, fictional, the childhood portrayed by them is not. Kids were different fifty years ago. Parents were different. Childhood was different.

Today there is an overreaching perspective that childhood is something that must be orchestrated by careful and ever vigilant parents. From soccer practice to hand sanitizer, kids are raised in an environment that is at once both entirely child-centered and adult-directed. Children of previous generations lived in a world where their lives occupied a wedge of family life parallel to adults, perhaps, or orbiting them. Today children are the axis around which most families turn. Or at leas this is what Robin Givhan would have us to believe in her recent Washington Post article.

Before I had a baby I had no idea what a minefield parenting is. I had no concept of how competitive and anxious and overbearing parents can be--each one as posturing as though they have discovered the one and only secret for for how a child is raised the best. Nor did I realize how terrifying parenting is. How much responsibility, angst, and inevitable failure.

My husband and I were pretty much on the same page about our approach to parenting when Bean arrived on the scene, and our approach could more or less be summed up by the phrase: laid back. We've leaned towards letting our kiddo figure things out by trial and error--even at the expense few scraped knees; and we tend to shy away from things like hand sanitizer and table corner covers. In our house if something lands on the floor, we have a very lenient ten-~~minute~~ second rule. But we're often realize that we're swimming against the main stream amongst our friends. There is a lot pressure from the parenting powers that be (not sure who they are exactly, they're out there) to be more cautious, more concerned, more vigilant.

Is it possible that as a culture we've swung too far towards the protective, preventative, sanitized, monitored version of childhood.? Do you think that as a generation of parents we're bubble wrapping our kids?

Comments (12)

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Joy 9-29-2007 @ 1:04PM

This is so hard to answer. I've thought about it a lot before I sat down to do so. I do think to a certain level that we do try and shield our kids to much. Of course, I have grandchildren now (and that's different!! LOL!!) I did let my kids try things by trial and error but I was always there to pick them up if they fell. I used to spend all my summers at my grandparents farm and I learned things there that I never would have in my little suburb of Mpls. I did raise my kids there as well. Now, I want to be that "farm grandparent". My brother and I used to sit for hours in an old abandoned hay wagon pretending we were crossing the praire or picking wildflowers in the ditch to surprise grandma. NOTHING was an organized thing. We played naturally and did things "city kids" didn't do. Therefore, I now live on a farm. My grandchildren LOVE to come here. They do the same things I used to do. They have "sticks" for guns and are "catching supper" for us all. They sit in an old boat and love to play there for hours. I do also know that times have changed. The world is more populated and there are weirdo's out there. I think there always werer the "weird" ones around but we didn't hear about them. The Internet and times have changed things. But, out here at Grandma and Grandpa's....we prefer to let them live and play the way we did. If they get a sliver, we taken it out. If they get a cut or a scrape, we get out the band aids but I do think kids need to use their imaginations way more and need less "group" and "planned activities. Kids need to just play and pretend.

Dawn Schweiker 9-29-2007 @ 1:34PM

As a parent, we do tend to shield our children from the dangers of the world and their environments, however, due to the changes in technology over the past 50 years it has become easier for child predators to invade our lives.

Just last evening my husband and I experienced every parent's worst nightmare...a missing child. Our middle son is 11 years old and he received a phone call from "a friend" as he stated and ran out to play. This was around 3:30. At 6:15 pm, he did not come home for dinner. We called all of his friends that we knew and they had not seen him. A neighbor stopped by and said that he saw our son talking to a woman in a white SUV. That was the last time anyone in the area saw him. We contact the police and they began canvassing the neighborhood. At 7:30 pm we still did not hear from our son and formally filed a missing person report. An Amber Alert was initiated. Our Home and School Association began calling all Room Mothers in the 5th grade classes of his school who then began calling all of the families of students in that grade. A phone call was made to the other child's house. At 8:45pm our son called home. He was safe and sound.

A classmate called after school inviting him over to play. He lost track of time and didn't think to check in with us.

This story has a happy ending. That isn't always the case. You never know. Child rearing these days are just different than they were 50 years ago. Our children can still explore our world - we just have chosen to participate with them.

CLM 9-29-2007 @ 1:49PM

My bible is "Slacker Mom".

My dad was with the government, so as a child we bounced around the country, living in both urban and rural areas. For the most part, my brother and I (along with whatever posse of children happened to be around), amused ourselves. We had music lessons and were on sports teams, but beyond that our parents' rule was that we had to touch base from time to time and let them know what/where we were up to and to be home by dark. I doubt our boys will ever know that much freedom, but my husband and I hope to give them as much of that as possible.

Trisha 9-29-2007 @ 2:15PM

It's a gray area it seem of what is doing our job as a good parent, what is over protecting and what is neglecting their safety.
I have a 1 1/2 year old so all day is play with me but as she gets older I long for her to play outside like I did growing up. We are deciding where we want to be when my husband is finished with his degree in a few years, right now we are in a large city and I KNOW I don't want to raise kids here. It's partially the general safety factor but also that my children wouldn't be able to play outside all day like I did as a child. My mom kept tabs on us, we got in big trouble for not telling her where we were going if we left the back yard but I was free. I played pretend in the back yard, climbed trees, read books in the hammock and forts under the picnic table. Practed running in the field behind our house (now full of houses:( and played in my friends yards too.
I think that living in a city atmosphere forces parents to some extent to "over protect" and over structure their childrens lives because what are the alternatives? Play in the park on their own? Watch TV all day? So activities like ballet, singing, violin, soccer, and karate seem like fabulous alternatives. But like you said, those activites make family life very child centered. I think that necessity is partially to "blame" but also society also now seems to believe that those types of activies are better for their child than most anything else. It's a slippery slope.
Oh, and hand sanitizer at the grocery store is just something I can't help but do....those cart handles are really kinda yucky:(

Uly 9-29-2007 @ 2:47PM

Ever read the book Whistle for Willie? Or the other ones about the same kid, Peter's Chair and The Snowy Day and so on?

That kid lives in an apartment, in the city. I was looking at the book with my nieces a little while ago when I realized - he can't be older than six in the books! And he's going out and playing in the snow all day (unsupervised) and being sent out to the store (by himself) and mailing letters (without holding a hand) and everything.

For that matter, I grew up in a city. We played outside by ourselves, every day. On my block right now, most of the young kids play entirely by themselves, all day. (I call them totally unsupervised, and I don't always mean that in a good way.) And yes, children go to the playground, watched only by their slightly-older (as in, 10 or 12) brothers and sisters. I sometimes think all this worry about overscheduling and hovering and supervising is a wealthy or upper-middle class hobby.

NYC, where I live, is *not* a more dangerous place than it was when I was growing up. Indeed, the crime rates have steadily (and in some ways, dramatically) been going down. I'm looking at the statistics right now. I'm fairly certain that these statistics are similar in the rest of the country. All that has changed is our perception.

Inger 9-29-2007 @ 7:22PM

I live on a military post in Maryland, and according to the law a child cannot be outside by themselves unless they are 13 years old or are with someone who is. My 4 year old can't even play in our fenced in yard without me being outside with him.

This is RIDICULOUS! But,I can't my neighbors calling in and reporting us (and yes, some of them actually would).

When my son is about 6 I will start pushing those limits more, but sadly I am not ready to challenge the authority too much yet.

Ethel 9-29-2007 @ 9:04PM

We probably are bubble wrapping our kids - my sister would sell papers downtown in a little SE Alaska town with her friend at 7 years old. This was some 1.5 miles from home - about 1/2 hour walking for a little kid. I would, we the neighborhood kids, check out an abandoned gold prospect (not too deep - just 20 feet). My sister and I would walk downtown by ourselves all the time, as long as we said when we'd be home and we were home on time it was fine. Our free time at home was absolutely free and unstructured - as long as we stayed in ear shot of mom yelling it was fine. We'd climb on what we called the Orange Thing - which was really a log dragger that had been abandoned after the valley had been logged. We would sit at the top of a 30 foot cliff in the backyard and watch Sesame Street below us (yes, I know - Coasties lived on that street). Heck we got chewed out by a Coastie mom from the lower 48 who thought us hooligans were too close to that cliff - not that one of us ever even came close to falling down.

Of course my mom and her brothers climbed into the attic of the house their family was renting, found a muzzle loader and went off in pursuit of game and brought back rabbits. They were middle grade levels then.

I think that if it were today social services would be called - and its been less then 30 years for my sister and I, some 60 or so for my mom. I was not bubble wrapped - but then again I was innocent and not exposed to what kids are exposed to on television today or the internet. In some ways we are dangerous and callous with our children.

Stephanie 9-29-2007 @ 11:48PM

I think some aspects of overprotectiveness have been pushed on parents. My toddler wears a helmet when he rides his trike... not because he particularly needs it right now, but he does need to have the habit, as California has a bike helmet law for kids under 18. By the time he's riding a bicycle, the helmet will be just a matter of habit.

On the other hand, my two kids play in the back yard more or less unsupervised for hours. I can hear them if they're loud enough, and my window looks out on the back yard, but for the most part they just play. My daughter built a pirate ship out of lawn chairs the other day. I think they're having a good amount of fun.

DaMoKi Bob 9-30-2007 @ 2:31AM

Joy,

It is always a joy to read your comments. You are the anti-organizer, defender of children's freedom to think, and act, and fall down and go boom only to spring up again and run across a field chasing imaginary friends or foes with their bodies and their minds. Childhood isn't so much about learning what you can't do, as it is about imagining what you can.

I am reminded of the lesson all parents should be lucky enough to learn early on: If you give a big expensive present to a young child, they spend less time playing with it than they do playing in the box it came in. The real and best toy is the one which springs from our imagination. Just ask most successful entrepreneurs. We should ensure kids develop that part of their education too.

Joy 9-30-2007 @ 3:49PM

Thanks very much Bob. I wasn't sure if you were making fun of me or complimenting me and since I'm wearing my "rose colored" glasses today, I'll take the compliment as I don't get nearly as many as I'd like.

maria 10-01-2007 @ 9:42AM

I read Robin Givan's article and thought she was a bit over the top. We make our pre-schoolers wear helmets so they know it's a requirement and to establish the habit. My MIL rolls her eyes about insisting on car seats - because you know they didn't have them and they lived. Well - a lot of kids didn't. Unsupervised kids drown in ponds, get hit by cars, are brain damaged when they fall off bikes.

At the same time - being safety conscious isn't the same as bubble wrapping. My kids play in the backyard - unsupervised (while I keep an eye from the kitchen). All 3 of my kids have legs covered in bruises and scrapes from riding bikes, falling and playing and yes - we have the 10 second/minute rule too.

Christina Sbarro 10-01-2007 @ 5:43PM

So many of you have pointed out that there is a difference between saftey and overly cautious 'bubble wrapping.' I think you are all right--and yet it still makes me lament simpler times, when childhood could be unhindered by the myriad dangers that seem to have drawn nearer in the last decade.

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