'I'm done making my kid's childhood magical'

Our gift bags from my 8-year-old's birthday party (football themed)

Eye black stickers
Whoopee cushion
NFL pencil
candy
in a reusable NFL cup

Total cost: $3 per bag.

The way the kids responded when the saw the whoopee cushion, you would have thought it was the greatest party favor they ever got.

 

I read the article. Meh. The comments are more annoying -- just more of the "get off my lawn" bullshit that pretty much every generation has ever said about every succeeding generation. Anyone who gets stressed out because of what other moms do on Pinterest or Facebook -- well, they need to look inward. The problem is with them, not everybody else. We've done birthday parties where we've gone all out (we haven't rented bouncy houses or hired characters or given out gift bags that cost more than $5 apiece, but we've done some creative stuff because it was fun) and birthday parties where 4 of my son's friends sleep over, they order pizza, make ice-cream sundaes and play Wii all night where we have spent maybe $30 total. It's whatever our kids say they want, within reason, or whatever we feel like doing. My wife does crafts with the kids from time to time and puts together pretty elaborate Valentine's Day and Halloween breakfasts for them - mainly because they enjoy it and it's a break from routine. But we've never felt any pressure to do a particular type of thing to keep up appearances or be some sort of alpha parents. And we certainly feel no sense of superiority over people who do it differently in either direction.

While I agree to an extent that kids today are less independent and parents are a lot more hands-on than when I was a kid (I'm sure we're guilty of that vis-a-vis our own kids to some degree), I'm feeling so done with the "oh my God, how did we ever survive without bicycle helmets, seatbelts and helicopter parents suing over Bs" snark. It's getting tiresome. And as a high-school teacher, I can say it's overstated. I have dealt with some crazy parents who make outrageous demands but they're the vast minority. Most of the kids are as respectful they ever were and their parents hold them accountable.

 

Of everything we have done as a family over 14 years, still the runaway leader in "best bang for the buck" is board games.

 

The only "appearance" that matters to me is that my son has a smile on his face in every picture.

It rarely matters how or why he's so happy. Just that he is.

 

Exactamundo.

 

This.

We love board games. Good old-fashioned card games or board games are the best... There are a couple that we play on the Wii, but the majority of the time, it's an old-school game, one that was probably around when most of us were kids...

 

I was sitting somewhere waiting on some copies the other day, and I overheard a conversation with two women, one of whom launched into: "We had lead paint in our cribs, and we turned out just fine!"

Um. A lot of people did not. Same with seat belts.

 

There's nothing wrong with a theme birthday party. (Maybe the double bouncy house theme party.)

It's more the daily ass-kissing of kids that I see that's so troublesome. One thing older generations had that younger ones either think they lack or actually do lack was the ability to tell the kids to go play inside, outside, wherever -- just away -- with the confidence the kids would like it and the comfort that the kids wouldn't be snatched and they the parents wouldn't be reported to CPS because the 6-year-old was down the street.

Today, for many reasons, there's just so much more fear involved, it seems. Fear of something bad happening. Fear of being blamed if something does. Fear of pervs, drug pushers, gun violence, speeding cars. Perhaps in error, I tend to think bad stuff with kids is usually more coincidental than cause-and-effect -- obviously, there's exceptions -- and when there is a cause, it's often benign in nature, if not in consequence.

 

There was a really outstanding recent book on the change in parenthood and childhood by NYT writer Jennifer Seniors called "All Joy, No Fun." I would highly recommend it.

 

The most important part of this: Make sure everyone gets a trophy.

 

Shit no. The first few times we played Monopoly, it ended with one of my boys crying because they tapped themselves out trying to build up Boardwalk and Park Place.

 

There's a lot more fear involved for exactly the reasons you say. I wish I could send my 9 and 6 year old out after school, tell them to find someone to play with and be back for dinner. Like how I grew up (as a latchkey kid, actually). And I'm not sure if we had too much freedom or if our kids don't have enough or if there's somewhere in between. But adhering to the realities of what's expected of parents these days is not the same as "ass-kissing." We still limit their TV very strictly -- they spend most of their time playing with Legos, reading, drawing and building furniture forts, playing on their swingset/slide in the backyard, playing ball in the front yard, etc -- all the stuff the woman who wrote the article in the original post waxes poetic about. And we still punish them when they break rules (though we don't hit them -- both my wife and I got hit from time to time and it didn't really have much benefit). Ass-kissing is when parents don't discipline their kids at all and they try to be their friend.