Whose Life is It, Anyway?

My 5-year-old is about to enter kindergarten (gasp). At an orientation session, a lot of other kids also starting kindergarten attended along with one or both of their parents. Though the majority of the kids appeared to be "just kids", it was interesting to see a few kids who were clearly the products of their parents. And I don't mean just genetically.

There was one little girl who was dressed rather inappropriately, with tight clothes and a tight, short pair of shorts with "Gap" emblazoned across her bottom. Now, I have nothing against The Gap, but somehow I don't think that 5-year-old pestered her mother into buying that outfit for her. I suspect it was more the mother thinking that her daughter should be wearing "the brand."

Another girl had on mini-replicas of a very expensive adult designer look, but something else caught my attention from across the room. Her mother appeared to be answering for the daughter, even if someone addressed the little girl directly. In some cases, when someone spoke directly to the girl, she looked at her mother as if expecting her to answer the question for her. I certainly couldn't hear what was being said, but the visual impression was striking.

To me this is foreign, since I regularly get chastised by my daughter for answering any question that she really wanted to answer first (even if she doesn't know the answer, but that's another story). While as parents we instinctively want to do things for our kids, we have to remember that they need to learn to travel the Road to Gumption on their own, too. We can "guide" our kids, but we shouldn't "steer" our kids, or else we risk living our dreams (or worse, our insecurities) through them. And it's their life that's developing in front of them, not ours.

Keep your eyes on the Road! ... to Gumption.