So much of parenting entails thwarting.
I must thwart my toddler’s attempts to travel staircases and wade in toilets. I do this with gates, latches, and other inventions meant to keep small children safe and properly frustrated.
I take away the cordless phone, which is often left on a low table. Everyone knows a story of a young cousin or neighbor’s child who called China, resulting in a $14,582.53 phone bill. They never say who was reached in China. It’s always as if the entire country came to the phone. 1 billion people simultaneously saying Ni-Hao would be pretty awesome, actually.
With older children, we erect other types of roadblocks. In our household, we have very strong filters on what they can see or search for on the internet. We don’t allow them to watch movies above a PG rating. If a movie is PG-13, my husband and I watch it first and then we determine if it is appropriate for them to watch. Sometimes the answer is yes, sometimes it’s no. We have disabled chat capabilities in online forums connected to our PS3 gaming system.
I worry we go overboard in our attempts to protect them from the influences of the big bad world. They come home from school with tales of kids who play rated-M games and watch movies like Saw. I’d never go that far, but sometimes I wonder if we are too prudish with our rules.
Is it possible our good-intentioned sheltering hurts our children in ways we don’t understand? Are they culturally illiterate because they can’t recount the funniest scenes from The Hangover or discuss the latest episode of Jersey Shore? Are kids who don’t play games where the object is to steal cars and kill prostitutes going to be left behind by their generation?
My toddler son often stands at the bottom of the stairs. He looks through the bars of the safety gate and says, “Up? Up?”
I know from experience that someday he will be steady enough to navigate each step safely. But at 14 months, it isn’t now. I cannot trust him to marry gravity and gross motor skills in a tight union. Gravity is still a bit of a bully.
The wisest thing for me to do is hold onto this truth. Our older kids gaze through the invisible bars of parental control. They ask to go up. To go deeper. To see what’s in that room to the left. Someday, the gate will swing wide open. Our job is recognizing when it should happen.
I have the feeling it isn’t now, but it’s very soon.
Gravity may be a bully, but it’s also a great teacher.
Finding the balance between protection and freedom is a struggle I never anticipated.
Author: gretchen
JoAnn
It is a tightrope, isn’t it? A lot of this is trial and error. One thing I’ll never forget from growing up is that my parents would let us do things earlier and earlier, depending on where we ranked in the “order.” As the oldest, I was forced to wait to do things that my younger siblings could do at earlier stages. Of course, a lot of the time, by the time I was old enough to do whatever it was, I was allowed to take a younger sibling with me. At the time, I deemed it highly unfair. (*I* had to wait, but s/he doesn’t!? Too bad, so sad. Life isn’t fair.) Now, I can see that they were probably just exhausted and gave in earlier. 😉
The challenge for me will be dealing with things that didn’t even exist when I was growing up. I mean, I got a cell phone when I was in my 20s, because that’s when they became common-place.
Great post!
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Sara Joy
I’m not there yet, but I am with you. I think that it is far more important to teach them what is important, what they should consider normal, what is healthy, before throwing them out into such a warped world. They need tools first, discretion, judgment, and also?
Childhood.
Saw, Jersey Shore, etc. rob pre-teens of childhood. And I am more than willing to stand up and say no so they can say they had that, before they realized all the rest of that junk was out there. I’d hate to have them function under the assumption that is “normal”.
Dorci
It is difficult, isn’t it? And they grow so fast it’s hard to keep up with them and their maturing stages. Before you know it they hit 18 and can basically go and do what they choose without your permission. That’s where, hopefully, having explained *why* watching Saw or some other equally IQ lowering movie or tv show is not a good idea. Or even better, giving them a good example to follow. Heck, I’m 46 and I have no inclination whatsoever to watch The Hangover or Jersey Shore..or a lot of the R-rated movies that come out now. Sometimes they make choices that I would make for them, but I pray, and really think, that they have a good foundation and as they grow older they’ll come to the realization that some of those things just aren’t worth the time or money. And then they’ll raise their own kids, with their own set of boundaries. I can’t wait to watch that. 🙂
Jill
It’s so true… we just watched Ferris Bueller’s Day Off with our 7 & 10 year old… with happy memories of a funny movie. What we had forgotten was the language – wow – foul mouthed kids! And innuendos that made me uncomfortable with my kids in the room. BIG MISTAKE!
We hear from our ten year old all the time that “everyone else gets to….” but for now, we will be the others, who don’t.
Adventures In Babywearing
I’m with you- I freaked out during an episode of iCarly where it *sounded* like they were saying a FORM of a curse word. I know what my kids are watching and playing (we just got a wii recently and they only play Lego Wii games.) They’ve yet to go play at a friends’ house- the friends come HERE. Don’t even get me started on sleep overs. I might hyperventilate.
I also still haven’t yet let them use the Internet at home. (Noah is 9.) I am probably a bit too strict on that one and movies (they’ve ever seen anything higher than PG), but I’m just cautious. And they aren’t asking, so I’d rather they be doing other (safer) things.
Yeah, I’m pretty protective but I’m taking it one baby step at a time.
Steph
Jenni
Saw? SAW???? Oh my word, I can hardly even look at the COVERS of those movies at the video store!
I’m with you, sister. Keep those gates locked and navigate with care. The greatest joy has been when my kids have reached the ages when they realize that just because they CAN watch/play just about anything (legally, that is), doesn’t mean they SHOULD.
The greatest example they have is my husband and I. We set limits for ourselves on what we will and won’t watch, and it helps them to see that not everyone leaps from the gate and shovels all the filth they can into their minds.
Rachel P.
It really is amazing what some parents will allow their children to watch or do. My children are young still so I haven’t had to navigate these issues yet. However, I do know that my goal is by the time they’re eighteen I will not need to hover because I know they have been taught good judgment. My parents never trusted me and continue to hover to this day.
Joy
An excellent post!!!
Heather of the EO
This really is tricky stuff, but I love the analogy of the baby gate and gravity.
I feel the same way about this stuff, and sometimes I wonder if I’ll shelter them too long. I hope I can follow my gut when it’s time to loosen up a bit, but I too worry that our rules will make them clueless in some way. Then again, I don’t really mind them being that particular kind of clueless. Yeah, tricky.
beckie
Parenting and it’s age-old challenges! I know how you feel. I second-guess myself often, and yet, why do I question my judgment? It is the twisted mentality of general society that makes us question. Just because it’s out there doesn’t mean it’s actually safe for consumption! I always tell my kids that once you watch/read/listen to something it’s forever in your head. There are a few movies that I watched as an older teenager that I really regret seeing. It’s forever etched in my mind. So I tell them to be careful what they put in there. I constantly go back to God’s Word on this issue. Nowhere in His word does He say “fill your mind up with as much garbage as you can so that you can be immune to it later”. No, actually we should expose our children to as much wholesome entertainment and decent activities as we can so they can recognize when something bad comes along. Yes, it will make them ‘different’ from other kids. But I don’t want my kids to look like everyone else. I want them to be beautiful from the inside, out. Hang in there!
edj
We definitely believe in parental standards and controls. Now that all are teens, we are working on allowing more freedom while still providing limits and supervision. For example, all have facebook, but no one has a computer in his or her room, and I have all the passwords on my computer. Any friendship request must be approved by us.
I love the analogy of a baby gate!
And yes, I too am mystified by those who allow young kids to watch R movies, play violent games, etc. To be honest, I’m mystified as to why anyone would want to play Grand Theft Auto, or similar “games.” I find it a little frightening. But hopefully, we’re teaching our kids that standards are important, so that in the years to come they’ll make good choices.
Mary @ Parenthood
Limits are tricky things. People are often shocked at the things I let Elizabeth put in her mouth, when I long ago gave up on that battle. If it’s dangerous, that’s one thing. If it’s just been on the floor, then life is too short to worry about it.
And while I’m shocked by the dangerous things done by others (uncovered electrical outlets or small choking hazards strewn around by an older child), I’m sure others are equally concerned that we decided fairly early that we weren’t the baby gate kind. I would be certain to injure myself as I’m the type that severs a tendon while making chocolate chip cookies. We call it “an opportunity for obedience” and obviously supervise pretty closely when Elizabeth is anywhere with stair access.
I’ll always remember being chewed out as a youth leader by a couple of parents who were annoyed that we didn’t let their daughters take the bus home at 11pm at night and drove them home instead. The parents felt we were obstructing their desire to give their daughters independance and street smarts. Legally we couldn’t have let them go because we didn’t have the proper permission, but I must say that we were quite happy not to have the proper permissions because the idea seemed irresponsible to us. But it was not our call to make!
I use that memory to remind myself that the boundaries we set as parents depends a lot on our goals, the experiences we’ve had in the past and the choices we make. I think what frightens me the most about R-rated movie watching kids is that I suspect the lack of boundaries just kind of happens without too much thought from the parents.