Saturday, I took my daughter to the square in town to hunt Easter Eggs. I thought, how cute! A town Easter egg hunt. The children will look so nice and it will gush old-fashioned values. I'm in.
We got up to the purposely-overgrown lawn to await the hunt. She was wary of the oversized bunny. No big deal, I would be too. (Later she said, "At the Easter egg hunt, something strange was going on. The bunny had grown-up shoes on." I said, "maybe his feet were cold." "no, it wasn't cold." "maybe he was worried he'd get a sticker." "Rabbits don't wear shoes." "Well, maybe it's because he's such a big bunny." "Oh. Okay." Wow. Mental gymnastics here...)
The parents lined up on the sidewalk with their kids. She is in her age group: 5-6 year olds. "Now just remember, this is practice for tomorrow and it's all fun. Don't worry if someone gets an egg you found. Just be kind. That's how God would want you to act. And remember, it's not about finding the most eggs. It's about having fun. So just have fun, girl!" I told her. She was excited. I was a little worried when I heard a few parents coaching their children in how to get the most eggs.
The adult-in-charge said "go!" Immediately, I found I was among three adults left on the sidewalk. I looked past my little angel and saw a woman dragging her child accross the lawn, purse flapping. I saw adults scooping up eggs and chunking them in baskets before the other adults could grab them up. Among the fracas, I saw my own little girl walking slowly, more worried about getting stepped on than about finding eggs. When she did find one, it was gone. She walked away with three pieces of candy.
An adult next to me said, "looks like there's some big kids out there." I told her, "It's okay. You didn't cheat and I'm proud of you. You played by the rules and that's more important. I'm so proud." What else could I say? She said, "That's okay, I'll get more candy tomorrow." I was proud. She knew this was just supposed to be fun and it was practice for the real thing.
The thing that later struck me was the parents who seemed to live vicariously through their children; if their children didn't do well, they weren't doing well. So they just did it for their children or pushed them so hard to make it competitive. I didn't think it really was supposed to be competitive. There were plenty of goodies for everyone.
I thought that these parents will have their kids in T-ball. They're the ones that will be yelling at refs about bad calls and yelling at their children and others. They'll get in fights with parents over whether the ball was foul or not.
These parents will be the ones who will fight every teacher that dares discipline their child. They'll probably do endless projects for their children and even do the rest of the kid's homework when they get tired.
They'll allow their kid to drop out when they've committed to something.
Or perhaps its the opposite. They'll push them beyond childhood to win at everything. They'll have to make perfect grades (nothing less than a 96), they'll have to be in three extra-curricular activities, beauty pagents, be the MVP, and tons of other things to get the parent's love.
I think parents keep kids from being responsible or make them be adults entirely too often. As a teacher, I see the kids with stomach ulcers because they can't stand the thought of less that over-achievement. I see the kids who answer to no one and do anything with no sense of respect, honor, duty, honesty, loyalty, or any other pieces of a strong character.
She and I won't go to the town Easter egg hunt next year. I can see the analogy and now I know why so many parents are chosing to home school.