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Larkin

Am I an Überparent? The other day I read a New Yorker article, called "The Child Trap," about the phenomenon of "overparenting," formerly known as "spoiling." This is the much-maligned way we boomer and post-boomer moms and dads ruin our kids by ladling too much attention all over them. Think of it as a parental comedy of errors: take the never-say-no fallacy, add the center-of-the-universe mistake, toss in violin lessons, write your kid's college essay, and bingo — you've got it.

The hovering, overinvolved parent is the stuff of contemporary urban legend. My sister tells about an acquaintance who limited her job search to only those jobs within five minutes of her six-year-old's school — just in case. A corporate friend mentions college grads who show up for job interviews... bringing their parents. As outlined in the magazine article, overparenting begins with boasting about your eight-year-old's proficiency in Mandarin, and ends ten years later with high school graduation and the gift of a cell phone equipped with GPS monitor. Tracking your college student's every physical move from dawn to dusk? Priceless!

It's easy to read about this and deplore it. But then I started checking off the overparenting sins I've already committed with Larkin. Baby Einstein products? Guilty. A Buggy Bag to protect her from shopping-cart germs? Guilty. (OK, we only used it once, but still.) The occasional boast that she already speaks a second language? Guilty.

The question is, how to distinguish the excesses of overparenting from values you actually embrace? I remember, years ago, staying at a friend's house and walking with him and his first-grader to school in the morning. To my surprise we went in, taking the girl to her class, and spent ten minutes hobnobbing with other parents and the teacher. I marveled at the informality and comfort of it. The involvement. My friend spent as much time in his daughter's school over three days as my parents had in mine over three years.

But can that kind of involvement be too much? Just a few weeks ago, this same friend called me. His daughter is now in college, plays on the soccer team, and hasn't been seeing eye to eye with her coach. My friend detailed the conflict, point for point. "I'm not going to call the coach," he said – and I could hear how badly he wanted to. How hard it was for him not to step in to help solve her problem.

To know that much about your 20-year-old's daily tribulations, to be on top of them like that: is this overparenting's belief and policy — assisted by cellphones — that "any problem, any decision, any flicker of experience" in your child's life (to use the writer's phrase) requires consultation? Or is it simply loving your child, being in touch with her and her world?

Here's another relevant anecdote. Recently another friend of mine, LD, visited for dinner. First he played with Larkin, the two of them hunkering down on the floor with her wooden train set. I noticed right away that LD's style of play was more focused and educational than mine. He kept explaining things to Larkin, then quizzing her. He taught her the meaning of "cowcatcher," illustrating it with Legos posing as a herd of cows. He laid the Legos out and had her count them; then name the colors. Oh, and what was that thing on the front of the engine called again? That's right, the cowcatcher! Excellent!

It was quite a brisk little cognitive calisthenic, and Larkin enjoyed it immensely. But I was taken aback. Had I been neglecting her mind? Should Larkin maybe be spending more time in LD's household?

Worrying about your toddler's intellectual development is a classic overparenting anxiety. Like most parents I know, I put a lot of emphasis on the formative nature of early childhood. Add insecurity about the future in a globalized, hypercompetitive economy, and presto. Break out those Baby Einstein videos! But the essence of overparenting lies in a glaring contradiction: on the one hand, an anxious desire to equip your child for success; and on the other, an instinct to manage, direct, and intervene in every important decision along the way.

Is there such a thing as too much love? Probably not. But too much coddling? Too much worrying that every last little curlicue of reality during the course of a day will have some significant impact on your child's long-term development? Yes, and (emphatically) yes. I see it in myself, all the time.

The other morning Larkin and I had a loud little run-in. At 5:45 a.m., she woke up calling out for her stuffed rabbit, Nugget. Turns out she'd left him in the car the night before. "Could you go get him for me, Dada?" It was cold and dark outside, she needed a diaper change, I was still in my pajamas. No, I said, she'd have to wait until we went down for breakfast. Enormous tantrum. My attempts to explain the situation went to no avail, so I told her I was going to get dressed, and left her there, on the floor, screaming.

Back in our room, I could hear her misery intensify. There's that moment when a toddler tantrum goes into weird-hiccup overdrive. That doesn't happen often with Larkin, and I didn't like hearing it. Maybe, I thought, I should go back in and… and what? Reason with her some more? Make sure she was all right? It was that almost automatic impulse to keep my hand on things — to add another explanation, reassurance, or incentive, and get Larkin through the moment.

In the end, I managed — barely — to restrain myself. Her scary-hiccupping wail faded. A few minutes later she was talking cheerfully to herself. The crisis passed, in other words. I did nothing, and she got through the moment without me.

Benign neglect: it may be the hardest thing for today's Überparents to learn