I've got a pretty darned good nephew.

[xiphias]

My nephew's been spending the week with my parents, his grandparents, but I had him for yesterday. I had a great time, and I think he did, too. We played with the cats, went to the diner for lunch, made ice cream, played some MtG, and played a few computer games (although not too many: he was grounded for using his iPad later than bedtime then lying about it, but, as his uncle, I was given permission to un-ground him for a limited period of time when we were together) -- there's a CRPG version of Shadowrun out that I introduced him to, and he was also showing me some of the stuff he's been doing in Minecraft.

Anyway, I was noticing something about myself.

You may have noticed that I'm really down on overprotective parents. I think that kids today are not given enough freedom, and their parents aren't preparing them for adult life. When I was nine, I was allowed to go down to the park on my own and stay out until dark; when I was in junior high and high school, I was allowed to go into Harvard Square on my own to hang out, and stuff like that.

Drew's fourteen, and his parents give him an appropriate amount of freedom. He's at least as smart as I was at his age, which is maybe not a very high bar, but I turned out okay anyway.

The thing is -- I totally wanted to protect him from absolutely everything in the whole world. I didn't want to let him out of my sight all day, because, y'know HE'S A LITTLE TINY BABY AND I HAVE TO TAKE CARE OF HIM.

So, yeah. I get it now. I get why parents get overprotective. Intellectually, I know that he's old enough to have a certain amount of freedom, but it would be SO HARD for me to give him an appropriate amount if I were his parent. At least the point of me having him was to spend the whole day together, so we were SUPPOSED to spend the whole day together the way that we did. But, yeah.

I get it.

Comments

[tylik.livejournal.com]

When my nephew was twelve, he started welding classes. (Mostly, this is just something I think about from time to time, between the "They let him...!" and "Why didn't anyone let me?!")

(Why?!!)

[cbpotts.livejournal.com]

Bear in mind that if we raised our kids the way our parents raised us, we'd be arrested for child neglect. The days when you could send your kid out on a bike after breakfast and expect them home for dinner are gone, gone, gone.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

My annoyance is at the people who think that's child neglect, not the parents who'd like to do it otherwise but aren't allowed to. I'm annoyed at the people doing the disallowing.

[cbpotts.livejournal.com]

*nods* They are such an oppressive, overwhelming force.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I observe that your comment that you'd "be arrested for child neglect" has been LITERALLY true on multiple occasions. It sounds like a figurative statement for emphasis, but, nope.

[snippy]

It's really encouraging for me to find out somebody gets it, because a lot of the time when a parent says "you don't get it" they are dismissed. And you can get it through empathy not experience, although I think very few people have enough empathy to do it that way.

And the "it" can be other things besides parenting, of course.

[metaphortunate.livejournal.com]

Dude. SO HARD to find that balance!

One day on vacation, there was a sort of empty hut structure that the Junebug wanted to explore, but it looked full of exciting things like staplers and scrap wood that he could hurt himself on, so I said no. Then later we were hanging out with another mom and she sent her three-year-old off to play in it. So I said, "oops! I am being overprotective mom! Go play with L, Junebug!"

Then I found out that L was one month from turning 4, i.e. a third again as old as the Junebug, who just turned 3. And the Junebug got a massive splinter that required a visit to a medic to remove. And Mr. E found them just as L. discovered the black paint and locked himself in.

So I'm learning about erring in both directions...