Gangrene

There’s this wooded area behind the park down the street from our house. A couple of years ago, my 14 year-old daughter wanted to play there with her friends. Is she crazy? Anything could happen: There could be a beer bottle in the woods there. You never know. The beer bottle could be broken; my daughter could step on it; she could cut her foot; her foot could get infected; she could forget to take her antibiotics; she could get gangrene. The gangrene could spread; she could end up in the hospital; she might need to have her foot amputated.

She could end up a uni-dexter.

So I called the city. It took over a year and a half to get anything done and I had to hire an attorney to file a class action suit. What a bother. But eventually I prevailed. The park and the wooded area behind it are now closed down. No one is allowed to go there any more. What a relief.

One of the other mothers saw me in the market and said, “Now the children have no convenient place to play outdoors.” What a loony that woman is. At least, as a result of my hard work, my children will have two feet.

This is the same mother who gave me attitude after I sued the pre-school ten years ago, got all those inept teachers fired, and had the place shut down. “They were loving, compassionate professionals doing the best job they could with limited resources,” she whined.

What an idiot.

My daughter had been going to that lousy school for two full years and she still didn’t know her multiplication tables. The four year-olds were still learning their shapes and colors! Can you imagine? She didn’t know the capitals of all 50 states. And they had the unmitigated temerity to put my gifted child in a heterogeneous classroom with three year-olds. No wonder she was graduated from pre-school without knowing how a bill becomes a law. Of course I had to sue the school and have them shut down. What else could I do? Incompetence has to be ferreted out and punished. Otherwise, as a result of these inept teachers, my daughter might not be Number One.

But did I get any gratitude from the community? No. Some stupid mother said, “Now the neighborhood children will have a longer commute to attend school.” So what? At least at this other school, my child will be the best. That is, she will be the best if there are competent teachers who do what I tell them. Otherwise I’ll get to work closing down that school as well.

I have my attorney on speed dial.

Now that my daughter is 16, she’s been spending time outdoors–walking from the car to the house. I am very concerned about the possibility of skin cancer. But are the feckless local politicians willing to do anything about this threat? Of course not. So once again, I’m going to have to take the matter into my own hands. As usual, it may take some time and effort to effect what is in the best interests of my child, but I’m willing to do what it takes.

I’m going to sue the sun.

***

In short, and without irony: this mom is not acting in the best interests of her child. She might think she is; she might feel strongly about it, but she’s not. This mom is not allowing her child to figure things out on her own.

At our best, as parents, our sacred responsibility is to prepare our children to cope, to solve problems, to resolve issues. We need to help them make lemonaide, sell it, invest the profits, and recycle the rinds.

If the function of a good liberal arts education is to teach undergraduates to pose, research, resolve and articulate problems, our duty as parents is to allow our children to be ready–cognitively, socially and emotionally–to do so.

Litigating on behalf of our children is unlikely to allow them to achieve for themselves.

And before you dismiss the mother above as a figment of my fevered imagination, check out the story about the woman who sued the pre-school in New York because her daughter wasn’t learning fast enough. That’s right: “pre-school.” As Dave Barry says, “You can’t make this stuff up.”

As much as we love our kids, as much as we want what’s best for them, we can’t clean up all the broken beer bottles in the world; we shouldn’t destroy the career of every imperfect teacher; we can’t bleach the outdoors.

A better plan would be to help our kids acquire the skills they need to overcome adversity and to take control of their own destinies–on their own.