Manager Parents

I was a lonely kid, tragically shy, deeply unpopular. I invented all sorts of strategies in first, second, and third grade so that it wouldn’t be quite as noticeable at recess how alone and ignored I was. I understand that this mom has good intentions, but she should absolutely stop. Children need to spend time with each other without parents or teachers managing their relationships. The lonely girl will grow up and get over it, or not, but that will be completely up to her.

Children at play or in the midst of devising their sociability strategies need to be left in peace. When they are at school, this and not math problems or exercise sheets or music lessons is the most important thing that they do. Unless somebody is getting physically beaten, which clearly is not happening in the situation in the tweet, the adults should just buzz off. They are too far removed in time to remember what it is that their children are doing. They are projecting their problems from today onto the behavior of the children. For example, the woman in this post is, for some reason, extremely uncertain of her value as a parent, and she engages in these little competitive outbursts on social media. It’s clear that that’s what it is because the language she chooses is uncomfortable and unnatural. “Scum of the Earth… because they are not inclusive.” Two completely different speech registers are clashing uncomfortably. The strength of the emotion breaks against the official slogan-like vocabulary.

Leaving that aside, efforts to manage one’s children’s relationships with other children is a mistake. If you want to show that approaching a lonely, shy person is a great thing to do, lead by example. Start approaching. There are tons of adults, including on the playground, who would love to make a friend, but they don’t know how to do that.

One of my aunts was desperate to raise her son to be a reader. She would spend all summer barking at him to read, but she herself never picked up a book. My mother, on the other hand, thought that I read too much and wanted me to learn to play the piano instead. I had to wear shoes two sizes too small my whole childhood, but my mother found money to pay for seven years of piano lessons. Today, when my cousin and I are both middle-aged, guess who doesn’t read and who doesn’t play the piano.