The Expectation of Happiness

          Instead of WELCOME, my best friend gave me a doormat that says “GO AWAY”.  I laughed hysterically when I first saw it and placed it at my front door immediately.  Any time we get a solicitor, I smile, point down at the message, then yell through the glass “Sorry, can't open the door.  My dog will eat you!”   Now that he is over 75 pounds and has a ferocious bark, it works every time.  I think the angel statue wearing the bicycle helmet balances the sentiment, but I do move the doormat into the garage at Christmastime as a show of good cheer.

             Another friend asked to borrow the doormat from me the other day.  Her youngest daughter just moved home after graduating from college to “save money.” 

            “You know whose money ISN’T being saved? Mine!” she said. Brianna had two job offers and turned them both down because she does not want to leave the great state of Texas. Last week, since she was so bummed out that she does not have a job, she bought a $300.00 Chihuahua puppy with the last of her graduation money because it would …ready?...give her something to be happy about.  I listened to her rant for almost forty minutes, vowing to myself that I would not take notes and use this story in any writing at any time, but she said, “I wish someone had told me to teach my kids that the best happiness is the happiness you get after overcoming a difficult experience.  Her happiness was a huge part of our parent-child conversation.  I thought having a secure childhood would make her more capable, not less."  The happiness requirement our kids have is overcoming the urgency of necessity.

            Almost twenty years into this mothering program, I realize that all of the theories I had about having children and rearing children have given way to the realities of doing it.  My early thoughts on parenting were formed by my negative and positive childhood experiences, but if I am honest with myself, my childhood had happy moments.  My childhood was not all happy and as a parent I want happy kids, but to what level?  Happy for eighty percent of the time? Forty?  When did we become so focused on happiness?  What percent of the time are mamas or daddies happy?  In fact, a good percentage of the time we are bored and frustrated, but even that serves a purpose. Frustration is the first response to a challenge.  Overcoming challenges is what makes new connections in a brain.  Perhaps it is time to re-think our goals for our kids.  Is the most important aspect of a career to provide happiness or to provide shelter, food, and clothing?  Brianna's mom would like a do-over, this time she would like to request her own Mother Board.

            Brianna (age 3) is at the playground.  She wants a turn on the slide, but is afraid of the stairs.  The playground is designed for ages 2-4, so physically, she can handle it.  She cries in frustration.  Brianna’s mama, wanting her child to be happy, reacts to her crying by 

Choice # 1

             lifting her over the stairs to the top of the slide every time

This does not allow the desire to have fun overrule the fear of falling, it confirms that Brianna is not capable, and it also makes Brianna’s mama her playmate, not giving Brianna the opportunity to learn to play with her peers

or

Choice #2
                sitting down on a bench and calling to Brianna “Go for it, Baby!” then looking away as if she expects Brianna to be able to do it.  Guess which one the Mother Board would encourage?  If Brianna overcomes her fear and does it herself, she realizes true value in her accomplishment.  She will access this memory of achievement every time she faces a fear until the next one reestablishes that knowledge and so on.  She builds her own basis of success.

            Sadness and happiness are reactions. When our little kids are disappointed or sad, mamas have the tendency to try to divert the sadness by introducing a positive stimulus to the child (favorite ice cream/candy/watch a favorite movie) or stepping in and doing the task for them.  The obesity rate in children in the United States has gone from 6.5% in the 1990’s to 20% in June of 2012 (Pandita). That is over 25 million children who are at least ten percent over the recommended weight for their age and height. Why is it that in the last twenty years our obesity rate has blown up? Could it be that the latch-key kids have grown up to be over-indulging parents to make up for our own unhappy childhoods? We think this will help, but what it really does is keep the child from learning that sadness is not debilitating and that picking herself up and trying another way is the key to success. If little ones are not given this chance, it only gets worse.  

            Brianna is now a junior varsity cheerleader at her high school with her friends.  Despite the fact that she is the least strong member of the team and has a slight sprain of her ankle which happened on the stairs at school, she tries out for the varsity squad.   The results are that she is the only one of her friends who is placed back on the JV squad.  Brianna is devastated.  Her mama, still the well-meaning, attentive parent wanting her daughter to be happy, goes to the school to re-explain that her daughter had an injury that happened at school and question why her daughter was not placed on the varsity squad.  The school says that they were aware of the medical situation, but that during the previous year Brianna had not shown that she has the ability to be on the varsity squad yet.  The next step her mama takes will determine Brianna’s emotional growth for this situation.  Her mama can:

Choice #1

                   threaten a lawsuit, forcing the school to give her a spot

                  Requires no growth on Brianna’s part and places her in an awkward position   
                   with the rest of the squad who legitimately earned the honor
                                                   or

Choice #2

                    help Brianna lay out a plan to deal with Brianna’s feelings of embarrassment and                     encourage her to practice to improve her performance level enough to make the                     varsity squad for her senior year.

Take a wild guess which one the Mother Board would encourage? 

Children who never have to deal with disappointment or embarrassment do not have the capability to deal with disappointment or embarrassment when they are adults.  They also have a hard time feeling empathy for other people who are experiencing these emotions. Almost always, it is those who have experienced great hardship who are the most compassionate.  Diamonds are not found lying in a bed of clover, they are formed deep within the earth under great heat and pressure.  These moments must be embraced. Encouraging a child to know they can and will overcome a difficult situation can be all the fuel the child needs to triumph over themselves. If the mama approaches a challenging situation with a positive attitude, she teaches her kiddo to do the same. 

The generation of parents before us did not respond to their children as ours does.  With two working parents, we were left home alone and were expected to do our homework, fold the laundry, and start dinner.  We thought this was tantamount to child slave labor, but to what end has this “helicopter parenting” brought our kids? 

Because of her mother's strategic blocking, Brianna has not experienced a major disappointment in her life, so as an adult, how will she respond when she does?  How many puppies will she buy?  How many bowls of ice cream will she eat to answer the lack of happiness? 

 Where children twenty or thirty years ago were made to do chores, have jobs, walk to school, and go play outside, learning to handle ourselves among our peers and overcome our fears without holding the hands of our parents, the concerns of today's parents have kept our kids closer to us.  We might have hated the frustration and uncertainty at the time, but looking at what we have been able to accomplish, some of that forced independent activity is the reason for our success as adults.  Our kids, under our watchful eyes, spend a great deal of time snacking in front of video games and the computer.   Yes, the safety factor was not as much of an issue for us as it is now, but we have gone guardrail to guardrail, overcompensating for the small percentage of monsters by not only protecting our children from them, but from failure.  Apparently, the outcome of our over-involved parenting is a generation of kids with expectations of "being happy" who will hit the colleges and job markets without having suffered and overcome the small challenges of childhood. 

  

Pandita, Rahul. "Child Obesity Statistics in America." Buzzle.com. Web. 15 June 2012