Three for a Thursday: Must-Read Parenting Article, TV Dads & Bruins Prevail

You Really Should Read This Article

The Atlantic's July/August issue has a provocative piece about the price children pay when their parents try to shield them from hurt, try to do everything for them and just focus on making the kids happy (I’m so guilty of the last one).

The end result? Unhappy twenty- and thirtysomethings who are ticked and disillusioned to discover that, once that they’re on their own, life isn’t all unicorns and rainbows people don’t constantly tell you you’re awesome and it seems like your entire happy childhood was somehow a lie.

Therapist Lori Gottlieb, also a mother, wrote that she’s seen a growing number of twentysomething and young thirtysomething patients who praise their parents but have had trouble “choosing or committing to a satisfying career path, struggled with relationships and just generally felt a sense of emptiness or lack of purpose.”

Gottlieb quoted psychologist and author Wendy Mogel saying, “Well-intentioned parents have been metabolizing [children’s] anxiety for them their entire childhoods so they don’t know how to deal with it when they grow up.”

A Los Angeles family psychologist added: “We’re confusing our own needs with our kids’ needs and calling it good parenting . . . I can’t tell you how often I have to say to parents that they’re putting too much emphasis on their kids’ feelings because of their own issues. If a therapist is telling you to pay less attention to your kid’s feelings, you know something has gone way out of whack.”

TV Dads: From the Doting to the Dreadful

In honor of Father’s Day, I surveyed today’s primetime dads and found that for every doting and devoted dad (like Parenthood’s Adam Braverman and Friday Night Lights’ Eric Taylor) there are also some dreadful drunks who no one would want to have as a paternal role model (like Mad Men’s Don Draper and Rescue Me’s Tommy Gavin).

I also left room for the lovable dopey dads like Modern Family’s Phil Dunphy who has a heart of gold and the common sense of a paper clip. The video above showcases how one of Phil's "big" ideas -- using the family's minivan to advertise his real estate business -- backfired. Big time.

Image credit: AP/MetroWest Daily News

Bruins Prevail

The entire Picket Fence Post family, including Max the dog, were up last night watching the Boston Bruins net their first Stanley Cup victory in 39 years while the boys wore Bs shirts and drank out of Bruins cups.

Once the game concluded, the boys ran out to the garage and honked the horns and then raced back into the house and replayed over and over the footage of Zdeno Chara hoisting the Cup over his head and shouting with glee. The Girl, who was happy for the team and the region, finally said, “Can I please go to bed now?” some 10 minutes after the game ended.

Now we learn that there will be what the mayor of Boston called a “rolling rally” in the Hub for the Bruins on Saturday. Provided The Youngest Boy doesn’t have a Little League playoff game on that day, I’m sure the Picket Fence Post kids are going to clamor to go downtown to celebrate.

These kids are so spoiled what with New Englanders being able to revel in this win, along with World Series victories, Super Bowl wins and an NBA championship over the past decade. When I was a kid, aside from the Celtics’ winning streak in the 80s, most New England teams were pretty bad and rooting for a team, like the Red Sox, mostly meant that you’d get your heart broken.

Image credit: AP/MetroWest Daily News.

Three for Thursday: 'Soccer Mommed' Spoof, 'The Middle' Parents Revolt & I Won't Watch Dead/Dying Kid Fare

Item #1: 'Soccer Mommed' Spoof

Jen Singer, of MommaSaid, has created a fabulous send-up video lampooning how super-involved and nutty the world of youth soccer has become. In the video, a mother of a 9-year-old boy wants to sign him up for soccer and another woman, whose son has been playing since pre-school, said it’s too late for the 9-year-old. When the first mom says she herself didn’t start playing soccer until she was 10 and played all the way through college, the second mom scoffed at that as representative of the “dark ages of youth soccer in America.”

My favorite part? When the first mom asks when practices are held and the second mom says matter-of-factly that they're on, “Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday.” Sundays are reserved for games, of course.

Item #2: The Middle Parents Try to Take Back Their Lives

The Spouse and I loved the latest episode of The Middle in which the parents of three, Frankie and Mike, decided to spark a revolution and “take back” their house from the tyranny of their children after Frankie had raced around to three different fast food restaurants to get a separate meal for each kid, blowing off the parents desires. And her kids still weren't satisfied and wanted her, who worked all day, to run back out to different places and buy them a few more items. The parents had been caving on everything the kids asked of them because they thought that’s what they needed to do to be good parents.

And even though, after taking a strong stand that adults are in charge, NOT the children, Frankie and Mike capitulated in the end to their offspring, I think it’s worth having a substantive discussion about how American parents SHOULD aggressively strive to strike a balance between spending time with their children and attending to their needs, with the fact that the kids should NOT rule the roost and be catered to as though the parents are indentured servants at the children's beck and call.

Item #3: I Won’t Watch Dead/Dying Kid-Centric Fare

With the voluminous critical acclaim which has been heaped upon the film Rabbit Hole and its star Nicole Kidman, you’d think that a pop culture buff like yours truly would’ve put the film on my shortlist to see either in the theater or on DVD.

But no. Hell no.

Why? The film focuses on the aftermath of the death of a married couple’s 4-year-old son in a car accident. Kidman plays the mom in mourning while Aaron Eckhart plays the haunted father, their marriage fraying under the emotional gravity of what has happened.

My Pop Culture column this week over on Mommy Tracked is about how I tend to avoid, if I can help it, watching TV shows or movies in which kids are gravely ill and/or die. Why? Because I’m already an intense worrier – I think of myself as an in-recovery helicopter/safety crazed parent – who doesn’t need to start obsessing over the varied ways in which harm could befall my three children, nor do I need to try to put myself in the place of a grieving parent because that would prove painful. As Liz Lemon might say, "I don't want to go to there."

Does that make me a wimp?