School is their job.
Like most jobs, school can be hard and, while some kids take their jobs more seriously than others, having a break from the grind is an American right, right? As such, under-eighteeners, can’t be expected to sustain a full day of well, anything, without expecting a break. Or at least a snack.
There are lots of kids who are nightly burdened with homework. That’s a good enough reason for parents to take the load off by doing science projects or writing college entry essays.
Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus: it’s called a parent.
Spring Break is probably the most inexplicable of all. Too few are staycations. Too many are travel destinations. Child-centered fun in doesn’t come cheap (remember that part about working to pay for it all?).
Pity the child left behind to hang out alone at home. With nobody to talk to except the dog or, gasp, siblings.
Here’s what I know:
- Treats aren’t treats if nothing is a treat. A family vacation is special once a year, not multiple times a year.
- Over-indulged kids grow up to be lousy partners and employees. The model is that their wants come first.
- Parental guilt keeps the whole thing going. When enough isn’t enough parents try harder and harder to please children who are numbed by the volume of it all.
- Generations re-create child-centric families whose toxic patterns create parental drift.
When parents take some time for themselves — without their children — their professional, personal, family, and parenting lives benefit. Intimate dissatisfaction and drift are reduced. Putting children before a parental relationship is a mistake few parents see. The truth is that parents take care of their kids best by taking care of their relationship.
Breakfast in bed, anyone?
Kathe Skinner is a Marriage & Family Therapist in private practice. She sees daily the results of over- entitled children, under-entitled partners and the messy families they create. Kathe lives in Colorado with her husband and their two entitled cats.
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