The Growing 1)Backlash against Over-parenting “直升机”父母:请学会放手
“望子成龙,望女成凤”一直是无数家长们的最大心愿。这边厢,秉承着“不能让孩子输在起跑线上”这一观念的家长们总是焦虑不安,今天为孩子选哪所学校犯愁,明天为孩子上什么培训班烦恼。那边厢,说是“减负”,孩子的功课却并不见少,各种各样的兴趣班纷纷向孩子们热情“招手”,原本无忧无虑的童年因为无穷无尽的压力而蒙上了层层“阴影”!不得不感叹:可怜天下父母心!可怜的孩子!
读完本文,你或许能感到一丝欣慰——一场“放手式养育”革命正在酝酿中,这场革命或许能让父母们有所反思,进而学会适时放手,尽量给孩子多一些空间,让孩子学会一步一步走好自己的人生路!毕竟,孩子有属于自己的人生,而非父母生活的“续集”! ——Maisie
文字难度：★★★☆
The insanity crept up on us slowly; we just wanted what was best for our kids. We bought 2)macrobiotic 3)cupcakes and 4)hypoallergenic socks, hired tutors to correct a 5-year-old’s “pencil-holding deficiency,” 5)hooked up 6)broadband connections in the treehouse, but took down the swing set after the second 7)skinned knee. We hovered over every school, playground, and practice field—“helicopter parents,” teachers 8)christened us, a phenomenon that spread to parents of all ages, races, and regions.
在育儿方面我们正慢慢陷入疯狂。我们只是想给孩子最好的东西。我们给孩子购买全谷物杯形蛋糕和防过敏的袜子,请家教纠正五岁的孩子错误的“握铅笔姿势”,在树屋里接上宽带网,但是在他们第二次擦破膝盖后就把秋千给卸了下来。我们在每个学校、操场和一切能培养孩子各方面能力的场所“盘旋”——“直升机父母”,老师们这样称呼我们。这种现象到处都是,各年龄层、种族和宗教信仰的父母无一幸免。
We were so obsessed with our kids’ success that parenting turned into a form of product development. Parents demanded that nursery schools offer Mandarin, since it’s never too soon to prepare for the competition of a global economy. High school teachers received irate text messages from parents protesting an exam grade before class was even over; college deans described freshmen as“9)crispies,” who arrived at college already 10)burned out, and “teacups,” who seemed ready to break at the tiniest stress.
我们望子成龙心切,结果把养育儿女变成了某种产品开发。父母们要求幼儿园开设普通话课程,为小孩将来应付全球化经济竞争从小就做好准备。在高中里,课还没上完,老师就会收到父母们发来愤怒的短信,抗议孩子的考试分数给得不合理。大学院长们把新生称为“油炸土豆片”,因为刚上大学他们就似乎已经筋疲力尽,还有的叫他们“瓷杯”——小小压力就足以让他们崩溃碎裂。
This is what parenting had come to look like at the dawn of the 21st century—just one more 11)extravagance, the 12)Bubble Wrap waiting to burst. And so there is now a new revolution under way, one aimed at 13)rolling back the almost comical overprotectiveness and overinvestment of moms and dads. The 14)insurgency goes by many names—slow parenting, simplicity parenting, 15)free-range parenting—but the message is the same: Less is more; hovering is dangerous; failure is fruitful. You really want your children to succeed? Learn when to leave them alone. When you lighten up, they’ll fly higher. We’re often the ones who hold them down.
在21世纪之初,家长们就是这样育儿的——用的简直是另一挥霍放纵的方式,那层起保护作用的气泡垫快要爆掉了。因此,现在一场新的革命正在酝酿之中,目标是扭转那股父母对孩子几乎荒谬的过分保护和投资的潮流。这场革命有各种名号——“慢养育”、“简单养育”、“放手式养 育”——但其传递的信息是一致的:简单即好,“直升机”般呵护是危险的,让孩子碰壁更有益处。你真的希望孩子成功吗?那就学会适时放手,让他们自由发展吧。你要放轻松,他们才能飞得更高。拖他们后腿的往往是我们这些焦虑无比的父母。
Once obsessing about kids’ safety and success became the 16)norm, a kind of 17)orthodoxy 18)took hold, and heaven help the 19)heretics—the ones who were brave enough to let their kids venture outside without 20)Secret Service protection. Just ask Lenore Skenazy, who to this day, when you Google “America’s Worst Mom,” fills the first few pages of results—all because one day last year she let her 9-year-old son ride the New York City subway alone. A newspaper column she wrote about it somehow 21)ignited a global 22)firestorm over what constitutes reasonable risk. Skenazy decided to fight back, arguing that we have lost our ability to assess risk. By worrying about the wrong things, we do actual damage to our children, raising them to be anxious and unadventurous or, as she puts it, “hothouse, mama-tied, danger-23)hallucinating, joy-24)extinguishers.”
一旦过分执着于孩子的安全和成功成为标准,就会作为一种正统扎根人心,上天得搭救那些敢让孩子在没有受到特别保护的前提下到处“乱跑”的“异端”父母。不信你可以去问问勒诺·斯科纳孜——时至今日,只要你在搜索引擎谷歌里输入“美国最差劲的妈妈”,她的名字就会占满搜索结果的前几页——而这只是因为去年的一天,她居然敢让9岁的儿子独自去搭乘纽约地铁。她在报纸专栏上提到这件事,立即引发全球激辩,对何谓“合理风险”,大家争持不下。斯科纳孜决定反击,她争辩说,我们已经丧失了评估风险的能力。因为害怕想象中的不测,我们实际上正在对孩子造成伤害,让他们变得焦虑不安且缺乏冒险精神,或者用她的话说,这些孩子是“温室里的花朵,揪着妈妈的衣服不敢撒手的娇宝宝,自己吓自己,扫兴无趣。”
There is no rational reason, she argues, that a generation of parents who grew up walking alone to school, riding 25)mass transit, 26)trick-or-treating, and 27)teeter-tottering should be forbidding their kids to do the same. But somehow, she says, “10 is the new 2. We’re 28)infantilizing our kids into incompetence.” She celebrates seat belts and car seats and bike helmets and all the rational advances in child safety. It’s the irrational responses that make her crazy. When parents confront you with “How can you let him go to the store alone?” she suggests 29)countering with “How can you let him visit your relatives?” (Some 80% of kids who are 30)molested are victims of friends or relatives.) “I’m not saying that there is no danger in the world or that we shouldn’t be prepared,” she says. “But there is good and bad luck and fate and things beyond our ability to change. The way kids learn to be 31)resourceful is by having to use their resources.”
她指出,自己这一代人过去上学时要么独自步行,要么坐公交车或地铁,万圣节自己去要糖果,平时自个儿玩跷跷板,现在成了父母了,本没有理由禁止孩子做同样的事情。但是不知为什么,他们“把十岁的孩子变成了两岁。我们把孩子幼稚化,让他们变得无能。”她说。她赞成安全带、汽车儿童座椅、自行车头盔等方面的儿童安全措施,但是那些非理性的反应让她抓狂。她建议道,当有父母质问“你怎么敢让他自己去商店买东西”时,你可以反问“你怎么敢让他独自去拜访亲友?”(有数据表明在受到性侵害的儿童中,有80%的孩子是被朋友或亲戚施暴。)“我的意思不是说这个世界上没有危险,或者不应事先做好防范,”她说,“但是运气有好有坏,还有命运,有些事情在我们掌控范围之外。孩子们就是在想办法解决问题的过程中变聪明的。”
Carl Honoré’s book Under Pressure:Rescuing Our Children from the Culture of Hyper-Parenting is a 32)gospel of the slow-parenting movement. His own 33)revelation came while listening to the feedback about his son in kindergarten. It was fine, but nothing 34)stellar—until he got to the art room and the teacher began 35)raving about how creative his son was, pointing out his sketches that she’d displayed as models for other students. Then, Honoré recalls, “she dropped the G-bomb: ‘He’s a gifted artist,’ she told us, and it was one of those moments when you don’t hear anything else. I just saw the word gifted in 36)neon with my son’s name...” So he hurried home and Googled the names of art tutors and eagerly told his son all about the special person who would help him draw even better. “He looks at me like I’m from outer space,” Honoré says. “‘I just wanna draw,’ he tells me, ‘Why do grownups have to take over everything?’ ”
卡尔·奥诺雷的《压力之下:把我们的孩子从“过度养育”文化中拯救出来》一书被奉为“慢养育”运动的“圣经”。作者的感悟源于听到老师对他上幼儿园的儿子的评价。多数老师都说孩子不错,但没提到什么特别出色的表现——直到他来到美术教室,那里的老师一边指着他儿子的作品(摆在那里供其他孩子学习),一边热情洋溢地夸奖他的儿子多么富有创造性。然后,奥诺雷回忆说:“她抛出了一个‘超级炸弹’:‘这孩子是个天才艺术家’,她告诉我们。那个时候你别的什么都听不见了。我只看见‘天才’两个字挨着我儿子的名字在闪闪发光……”于是他赶紧回家,在谷歌上搜索了一些美术教师的名字,并急切地告诉儿子要请一个专业家教来,帮助他画得更好。“他看着我,好像我来自外太空一样,”奥诺雷说,“他告诉我说‘我只是想画画,为什么大人们总是什么都要管?’”
“That was a 37)searing epiphany,” Honoré concludes. “I didn’t like what I saw.” He now writes and lectures about the many fruits of slowing down, citing research that suggests the brain in its relaxed state is more creative and is ripe for 38)eureka moments. “With children,” he argues, “they need that space not to be 39)distracted. And leave them with space to think deeply, invent their own game, create their own distraction. It’s a useful 40)trampoline for children to learn how to get by.”
“那个时刻,我的心深受震动,”奥诺雷总结道,“我并不喜欢我所见到的真相。”他现在写书,开讲座,阐述放慢步调可以带来诸多收获,并引用一些研究来证明大脑只有在放松的状态下才会更富有创造性,才会有更多领悟和发现。“就孩子而言,”他指出,“他们需要一个不被打扰的空间。给他们空间,让他们能够深入地思考,发明自己的游戏,创造自己的娱乐。它就像是一张实用的蹦床,让孩子们自己学会如何应对。”
A certain amount of hovering is understandable when it comes to young children, but many educators are concerned when it persists through middle school and high school. Some teachers talk of “41)Stealth Fighter Parents,” who no longer hover constantly but can be counted on for a 42)surgical strike just when the high school musical is being cast or the starting 43)lineup chosen. And senior year is the 44)witching hour: “I think for a lot of parents, college admissions are like their grade report on how they did as a parent,” 45)observes Madeleine Rhyneer, Dean of Students at 46)Willamette University in 47)Oregon. Many colleges have had to invent a “director of parent programs” to run regional groups so moms and dads can meet fellow college parents or attend special classes where they can learn all the school 48)cheers. 49)The Ithaca College website offers a checklist of advice: “Visit (but not too often)”; “Communicate (but not too often)”; “Don’t worry (too much)”; “Expect change”; “Trust them.”
当孩子们还小的时候,偶尔像直升机一样围着他们团团转是可以理解的,但是很多教育者担心这种过分关怀会一直延续到初中和高中。一些教师谈到,“隐形战斗机父母”,他们不再没完没了地在孩子身边盘旋,但会在孩子所在的高中为音乐剧挑选演员或者确定首发阵容等关键时刻精确出击。孩子念高中三年级时更是他们“发威”的时刻:“在我看来,对很多家长而言,大学入学考试成绩就像父母的一张成绩单,表明了他们为人父母称职与否。”俄勒冈州威拉姆特大学学生处处长玛德莱娜·莱涅评述说。许多大学不得不专门设一位“家长会总监”来负责主持一些地区工作小组,让不同院校的学生家长们聚首交流,或者安排父母们上一些“特殊课程”以掌握学校里发生的一切盛事。伊萨卡学院的网站上就列出了这样一份建议清单:“看望(但别太频繁)”、“沟通(但别太频繁)”、“别(太过)担心”、“期待改变”、“信任孩子。”
Teresa Meyer, a former 50)PTA president at Hickman High in Columbia, 51)Mo., has just sent the youngest of her three daughters to college. “They made it very clear: You are not invited to the registration part where they’re requesting classes. That’s their job.” She’s come to appreciate the please-back-off 52)vibe she’s encountered. “I hope that we’re getting away from the helicopter parenting,” Meyer says. “Our philosophy is ‘Give ’em the morals, give ’em the right start, but you’ve got to let them go.’ They deserve to live their own lives.”
密苏里州哥伦比亚西科曼高中家长教师会前主席特丽莎·梅尔刚刚把最小的三女儿送进了大学。“他们说得非常清楚:你没有获邀参与注册跟学生一起上课,这是学生们自己的事。”她开始欣赏这种“请别管太多”的做法。“我希望我们真的能逐渐摆脱‘直升机’式养育法。”梅尔说,“我们的观点是‘教给孩子好的品行,让他们有一个正确的开始,但你得放手让他们自己走。’他们应该过他们自己的生活。”
