' Chronic overparenting'......is it something MNers recognize ?

[mozhe]

...and by that I mean the persistent/long term/almost obsessive preoccupation with providing ' perfection' for their DCs....

Do you think this is something you are prone to ?

Is it more likely to occur in parents of first/only children ?

More likely in previously high achieving SAHMS ?

And what do you understand by the term ' benign neglect ' ?

thanks zookeeper no point in being anything other than honest on here, and sometimes, that makes things kick off hey ho

i agree anna

Yes Yes Yes Dino - I won't name names though.

and then there's the competitive parents, a closely-related breed..

I really don't see this as a SAHM vs WOHM issue. Rather unusually I agree with anna on a lot of what she says. It is incredibly difficult to benignly neglect an only child when you live in a small flat with no garden and no extended network of family/friends's lives for the children to meander in and out.

I find myself worrying about this quite a lot. Peversely I rarely find myself worrying about whehter ds will hurt himself or if he has hit/been hit by another child or even worrying what school he will go.

In fact my 2 year old ds fell in a river the other day when we were on holiday as dh and I were so busy benignly neglecting him .

I really don't see this as a SAHM vs WOHM issue. Rather unusually I agree with anna on a lot of what she says. It is incredibly difficult to benignly neglect an only child when you live in a small flat with no garden and no extended network of family/friends's lives for the children to meander in and out.

I find myself worrying about this quite a lot. Peversely I rarely find myself worrying about whehter ds will hurt himself or if he has hit/been hit by another child or even worrying what school he will go.

In fact my 2 year old ds fell in a river the other day when we were on holiday as dh and I were so busy benignly neglecting him .

Lazycow - yes, I barely think about safety issues, whether my daughter will hurt herself etc. I do spend a lot of time "thinking ahead" to activities that will enable her to develop as they aren't on the doorstep (no garden, village, neighbours) and I spend a lot of time explaining to my partner not to wait on / entertain ALL the children...

hhmmm, yes, how do i persuade my DP tht he doesnt have to pander to his DDs EVERY need, EVERYTIME she demands it - we were at the swing park at ten to nine last night as we had been to DD1 art exhibition til 8, and daddy couldnt say no to his darling little girl who started saying SSSS SSSS as we made the mistake of driving down the road wiht the park in - arrrrgggghhhh, just one example of his pandering - trouble is, it is backfiring because she is getting really whiny and demanding around him - mum just sits back smirking

lucy - I have the same issues . He panders, runs after, carries etc and then she is a nightmare on Mondays and he spends half the week complaining he's exhausted from the weekend...

yep that'l be right, and she wont let me do a thing for her, dadadadada is all she wants - its fine most of the time, especially when she wont let me change her poo bum - different child with daddy away, sad really as she loves him so much. The other day i think he had picked her up, put her down, put her in her push chair about six times in the space of 100 yards!!! ho hum

Hmmm. This has given me a BIG dilemma.

Which stereotype wins?

I am a mother of an only child so obviously over-parent my PFand onlyB within an inch of his over-scheduled life, whilst at the same time I am a (currently, here and now) highish-achieving WOHM who dumps her child with strangers, so cannot possibly over-parent.......I'll have to read some more Sunday paper features and see which fits me better.

LOL at Marina: "An article in Junior doth not a real life phenomenon make "

the two don't have to be mutually exclusive Blu

Kerrymum are you me?

Whenever I go out with the mothers from school I sit there in bemused wonder at the fuss they make over things that aren't there to be fussed over - who will be the teacher next term, what happened to XYZ child, what mark the children got. I never know the names of the children's classes and their teachers' names. It's a matter of what you're interested in and it's as if their lives are completely bound up in their children, that some of them almost lead their lives through their children like some kind of inccubus - they make the child and then their own lives are cast off forever as they get older fatter and completely subsumed into house and home - ti's a dreadful housewife type spectacle that makes them end up in a sense a complete non entity and often a door mat, the person at home who cleans up, serves, silently there to see to needs but a person out of the world with no job, status, interests except whether johnny's pudding might have something in it he might conceivably be allergic to or whatever.

weird!

i cannot,for a second,be accused of 'over parenting' as i have 5 children and there is only one of me,and 'please just go and watch cbeebies for 5 minutes while mummy drinks her coffee'is a line often heard in my house.

however,i do like to know who my childrens' teachers are/going to be,and i was atlking to one of ds2's friends mums about that very thing the other day.

taking an interest in your childs education is not over-parenting.

I do think it's sad that you wouln't even know the name of your kids teacher - they go to school for alot of the day, so presumably talk about it at home - don't you listen to them?

yea, i know all about the boys school, consider that basic stuff. But over parenting and yes zookeeper it's very close relative competitive parenting is alive and well certainly in north leeds. Exhibited by both WOHM and SAHM, and indeed i know of one specimen who has 3 offspring and still would get an A* at overparenting.
mostly benign neglect myself, beta mum type so much disappoved of

previously high achieving?? Aren't people just high achieving or not, as in, their personality types?

If over parenting is the same as hot housing, I've seen some where I live. Or maybe those kids just have ten times more stamina than mine do

Since 3 yr old dd tends to say 'maybe when I'm bigger Mummy' if I suggest swimming or ballet lessons, and I've learnt to listen to what she thinks she's ready for, its not an issue in our probably underachieving house...

Xenia that's so funny - you have the same solution for every situation! Do you ever accept that there are different types of family?

I must admit I hahve never come across any FT working mum or dad who doesn't know the name of thier children's teacher. Presumably you do parents' evening - how do you find the right classroom/desk if you don't know who you're looking for?

I haven't read the entire thread but 'benign neglect' to me is repositioning the cot so DD can see (5m) and giving DS(3) a couple of pillows and putting finding nemo on to get another hours kip.

Ditto, making organic ice lollies and letting him have one if I want to MN for a while.

In my bedroom of course, and I do give DS some toast.