My mom is a pediatrician and has been practicing for a very long time. Yet, with all of her fancy book learnin’, she still reverts to “Granny from Old Country” mode whenever she’s around her one and only grandson.
I have to remind her that Scout won’t starve for lack of interest in breakfast, does not need socks, and will not get pneumonia because of a dip in the forecast.
Her most recent concern is that Scout is too pale and therefore must be anemic. In her medical opinion, of course. Each time, I tell her to take a good long look at my baby daddy…
Yeah, he’s pretty fly for a white guy, but a white guy nonetheless. A very, very pasty white guy.
My mom just clicks her tongue and bugs me for the hundredth time to get Scout’s blood tested, slip him some iron pills, or at the very least mention it to his (local) pediatrician.
(For the record, I did mention it and he is not anemic. No blood letting necessary.)
Her line of work also privileges her to the most extreme circumstance– day after day of treating, reading about, and studying the worst of the worst case scenarios… and she doesn’t hold back when it comes to sharing.
She’ll tell you a story about someone being impaled with a chopstick as you’re ordering “Mu Shu Pork” or frantically call when a patient of hers requires stitches.
In this case, a boy (who just so happened to be Scout’s age…) threw a block at the TV. It bounced off the screen and hit his little sister in the forehead. Four stitches, can you believe it!?
No one lost an eye or got a concussion, but because of this freak accident, she demanded that I immediately remove anything and everything in my house that could possibly be used as a projectile…
That would be anything and everything.
If you don’t answer the phone the second she calls, she automatically assumes you’ve been raped, murdered, and dragged into a ditch. She’s called the police over my sister’s dead cell phone battery… twice.
When we were growing up, she required two weeks’ notice before allowing us to go over to friends’ houses. (Of course, once we learned how to drive, we just told her where we were as opposed to asking.)
My FAVORITE “Mom line” as a teenager was, “It’s not you I don’t trust. It’s the rest of the world”. That was her excuse for everything from not allowing me to shave my legs to forbidding me from riding in a cars with boys.
I could go on and on, but I think you get the point. In her mind, danger lurks at every corner and there probably are monsters under my bed…
As a parent, I know all too well that worrying is the the domain of motherhood. To a certain extent, I get why my mom is so crazy, but I just can’t buy into her hysteria.
If anything, my parenting style, from being a SAHM to letting natural consequences do the teaching, is a total reaction to my upbringing.
I want to be able to trust my kids, and hopefully prepare them for the world rather than (over)protecting them from it and attempting to micromanage every aspect of their lives.
There’s a new book getting a lot of coverage recently, from Newsweek to the “Manic Mommies“. It’s called Free-Range Kids: Giving Our Children the Freedom We Had Without Going Nuts with Worry and is written by Lenore Skenazy. Remember her?
She was that “wack-a-do” mom vilified in the press for letting her 9-year-old boy ride the NYC subway alone…
The nation was shocked and outraged. Of course it was. Day after day, we’re inundated with way too much information “…sensationalistic media coverage of child abductions, safety tips from alarmist parenting mags, and companies marketing products that promise to protect tykes from every possible danger.”
Bucking at the trend of obsessive but well-intentioned “helicopter parenting”, Skenazy asserts that all of our vigilance is actually putting our kids in a far greater danger- the inability to grow up and think for themselves.
Why not allow our kids the freedom to experience the world?
After all, not only have child abductions and homicides gone down, children today are just as safe (it not safer) than they were back in the 70s and 80s thanks to greater awareness, better technology, and more policing.
The world is actually a very nice place.
Right. That’s the rational, uber-progressive Mommy side of my brain talking.
Fast forward to the other day. Scout and I were at a popular and busy park with the playgroup. I lost sight of Scout for a few seconds, only to spot him on the far side of the playground talking to a lady with a dog.
She seemed harmless, just another mom with her kids playing nearby. She even kept a cautious distance away from Scout, but my mind still flashed back to every after-school special I’ve ever seen.
(Cue Camera 3, zooming in from behind the bushes. Great. Close up on the dog… )
I pictured myself on the evening news, sobbing, “I only looked away for a moment…”
I bolted towards him, determined to snatch him away before she could.
As I dragged him back to our group, yelling, “don’t you EVER talk to strangers”, I realized something even more horrific…
I’m becoming my mom.
*********************************
Just kidding. I love you, Mom, and, for the record, you were right about riding in cars with boys. No good can come of it. Plus, I don’t even like shaving my legs anymore.
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While I don’t believe I’m quite that extreme, I definitely side more with your mother than the lady who let her 9 year old ride the subway by himself. That’s just insane to me. Then again, I’ve also been known to worry. A lot.
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Well, I definitely don’t want to become a Helicopter parent but I do find myself fighting the urge to hover on a daily basis. I’ve learned it really is all about balance…
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My my is like yours (except not a pediatrician)…she finds the most random things and likes to try to freak me out about it. It’s just not right.
I try to do the same with allowing the freedoms, but still keeping a watchful eye! Man is it hard!
BTW, I responded to one of your comments via email and it got bounced back to me. I think the email address had amercianmom (or something of that nature) in it. Maybe it’s the blogger account that has the wrong email.
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I am in a constant battle with myself not to hover and be overprotective…constant. Which btw, is the exact opposite of my Mom. She just opened the door and kicked us out for the day!
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Great post! Especially the wrap up at the end. And yes, we do turn into our parents. I say parents, because sometimes I sound like my dad, especially at the dinner table. I’m always saying “Put your mouth over your plate when you eat.” and “Please chew with your mouth closed.” Mom favorites include “Don’t talk to me like one of your friends on the street.”
And yes, I don’t like to hover too much and be overprotective, but that means to me letting my 8 year old go to the ladies room by herself in a restaurant (but only as I stare at door to the ladies room the whole time and I must see that door for her to be allowed to go), but I know I wouldn’t let her take the NYC subway by herself.
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Great Post. I do think that it is inevitable. Us turning into our mothers. But of course it will be slightly different as we’ll be aware of it…… Somewhat. And then we’ll make our own, newer mistakes that our kids will grow up wanting to do differently.
Ahh. The cycles.
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always trying to find the happy medium between no supervision and total “helicopter”. It ain’t easy. Great post. Thanks for the links… Will check them out. You now have 8 subscribers and yes, you everything you write does border on the fascinating!!
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Oh wow, our moms are parenting soulmates. My mom prepared me to see the worst in everything. I am paranoid now by nature. I am trying to figure out if this is something that I want to pass on to my kids or not…hmmm…this would be a good post! Thanks G
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