Posted on 03/17/2019 6:19:07 AM PDT by Drew68
Nicole Eisenberg’s older son has wanted to be a star of the stage since he was a toddler, she said. He took voice, dance and drama lessons and attended the renowned Stagedoor Manor summer camp for half a dozen years, but she was anxious that might not be enough to get him into the best performing-arts programs.
So Ms. Eisenberg and others in Bloomfield Hills, Mich., the affluent suburb where she lives, helped him start a charity with friends that raised more than $250,000 over four years.
College has been on their radar since her son was in diapers. “We’ve been working on this since he was 3 years old,” she said. To apply, she said, “I had to take him on 20 auditions for musical theater. But he did it with me. I don’t feel like I did this. I supported him in it. I did not helicopter parent him. I was a co-pilot.”
Or was she, perhaps, a … snowplow parent?
Helicopter parenting, the practice of hovering anxiously near one’s children, monitoring their every activity, is so 20th century. Some affluent mothers and fathers now are more like snowplows: machines chugging ahead, clearing any obstacles in their child’s path to success, so they don’t have to encounter failure, frustration or lost opportunities.
“The moms — the four or five moms that started it together — we started it, we helped, but we did not do it for them,” Ms. Eisenberg, 49, recalled. “Did we ask for sponsors for them? Yes. Did we ask for money for them? Yes. But they had to do the work.”
She even considered a donation to the college of his choice...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Mizz Eisenberg, huh.
Something tells me her boy is a little light in the loafers.
Maybe “Mine Sweeper Parents” would be more correct.
“Don’t worry, Momma, We’ll tear your precious a new one before its all over. You can bank on that!”—The World, The Flesh and The Devil
Perhaps. However, should you wind up a straight boy involved in theater, you will never run out of p*ssy.
I'd bet my paycheck momma didn't vote for Trump though.
Then they lecture us on how to live our lives.
There is that. :-)
The father of Patrick Mahomes, KC's QB, was a MLB pitcher.
Very often we (correctly) bemoan the collapse of the nuclear family, how men abandon their families and leave single mothers to go it alone, often with poor results. Yet when we read about a parent going all-in on their children, many act like they should have let Johnny or Mary twist in the wind.
So, what shall it be? Pro family or anti-family? Yes, balance is important and bribery and lies are to be shunned. But whether or not it is intentional, articles like this one strike me to be more about championing a Hillary/It Takes a Village/anti-parent mindset. Bravo for this mother (and if you do research, she and her husband do quite a bit in this realm) supporting her kids, even if they are likely not Trump supporters.
In the 1950s life was different. Get in trouble in school and what ever punishment your got there was not enough, my parents did not understand the rule of double jeopardy, you would get punished again.
The biggest rule we lived by was be home for dinner and then when the street lights came on.
By the time I was 8 I knew the bus routes around our town and how to get a transfer and so was able to get out to the parks, zoos and museums on my own.
I guess we were lucky, there were only three channels and they signed off around midnight and came back on something in the morning and the shows during the day had little interest for kids. We were not encouraged to stay inside during the day (nor were our parents responsible for entertaining us).
Vacant lots were our playgrounds and football and baseballs games had to adjust to the lot. The rules were flexible (usually the one owning the ball having the final say).
We were not afraid of dirt or getting dirty. Clothes got washed and so did we.
Meals were at home because with few exception there was no “fast food” and besides the only time us kids ate at a restaurant was when we were on one of great ROAD TRIPS.
A different time
Yes... a different time.
And with larger families, the older children had responsibilities. Principal one was “If you are not the baby, don’t cry. You will have to figure it out and do it.”
There have been such parents since the beginning of time.
Clearing your children’s roadblocks or hovering over their very existence robs them of their entrepreneurial spirit. If our kids wanted something, we made them figure out how the get it on their own. Have a vision, make a plan, make a schedule, execute the plan, reap the reward. Both our kids are very successful.
Separately, I once interviewed an engineering candidate for a position in our company. That afternoon I got a call from his father wanting to know how his son had done in the interview, were we going to hire him, and what would the offer be. Father ruined any chance of his son being hired.
Exactly why Michael Caine said he went into theater. As one of the few straight guys it was a trim fest.
Totally agree, except I lived that growing up in 60’s/70’s. As long as I didn’t do anything stupid, for which I would be appropriately punished, my brother and I were always out and about. Tree climbing, bikes over ramps and small inclines, Tarzan ropes upstream from the falls, riding bicycles when I was 6-7 up to the Grants or walking a few miles to the Boys Club. Out until dark. LOL, at Halloween my brother and I would throw on some extra charcoal as we ‘hobos’ went out scouring the 3rd or 4th neighborhood a few miles away. This at age 8. In my teens, hitchhiking if bus fare wasn’t available, riding bicycle 15-20 miles away on day adventures with friends.
All good - helped me to be responsible, get out and get a full time job at 18 and on my own at 23.
Oh - and the only ‘help’ my dad would give me (I don’t say that begrudgingly, I thank him every day for giving me his work ethic), was to assist me when I was 12 to deliver the wreaths I sold door to door or with my newspaper route for the customers a few miles away when the snow was just too deep for my bicycle.
Watch, “Leaving Neverland.” Watch the two stage moms. Amazing!
Also, we saw happen when my grandson played baseball in middle school and high school. My daughter watched as other parents had their kids on traveling teams throughout the weeks and years. Their school work wasn’t getting done. The boys were too busy with baseball and soccer. Parents thought their boys were going to be baseball and soccer stand-outs someday and get full scholarships to college.
My daughter stressed good grades to my grandson. Sports came second. No traveling teams! If he wanted to play baseball or soccer on a school team, that was fine. He did.
As a result, NONE of his friends became outstanding baseball or soccer players qualified for pro teams or scholarships. NONE had the grades for college. My grandson graduated #2 in his high school class and received a $26,000 academic scholarship to the college of his choice for all four years. Engineering. Will graduate in May. He just received another $22,000 for graduate school.
A cou0le nights ago, I was walking through a local park wearing my MAGA hat. There was a group of five boys about 12 years old. They waved and one told me he liked my hat. I told him I liked it to and they all nodded.
Walked through the park again today. Same boys were there. They found a ladder and were climbing to the top of a shipping container that is used to store rugby gear. Boys being boys and doing some actual exploring. I waved and smiled.
One of Heinlein’s little ‘quips’ comes to mind...”Don’t handicap your children by making their lives easy”
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