Dear Ann Cannon • When I was a kid, I hosted and went to plenty of sleepovers. My husband did the same. Now that my two little kids are getting a little older, I suspect they may start asking about having a friend stay over or going to a friend’s house. I never thought I’d be that mom, but I don’t think I want to either host or send my kiddos to another’s home. Am I being overprotective?
— Awfulizer Mom
Note to Readers • I feel a major detour coming on here, so if you’re not interested in going for a ride in a sidecar down Memory Lane with me, feel free to skip the first three paragraphs below.
On Christmas night this week, my husband and I went to the cemetery near the street where I lived as a little girl to put candles on our families’ graves. Not surprisingly, I was overwhelmed by memories of my free-range childhood. You know. The kind of childhood where parents put you outside with the dog first thing in the morning and then whistled for both of you to come home in the evening when it was time to eat. During the winter months, my friends and I used to go sledding on the hillside right beneath the cemetery. During the summer months, we tore around the neighborhood on our bikes (helmets hadn’t been invented yet) shouting, “LOOK, MA! NO HANDS!”
Didn’t our parents worry about us? Well, sure they did. But they certainly weren’t overwhelmed by fears of pedophiles or kidnappers or accidents, even though all of those things, unlike bike helmets, had been invented. Especially accidents. After one of my many bicycle accidents, for instance, I went around saying, “LOOK, MA! NO TEETH!”
Were our parents negligent? No. It’s how people — a lot of them anyway — parented in those days. It was generally believed that adults had their lives and children had theirs. Was the world a safer place then? I’m not sure it was, frankly. But our parents, themselves children of the Great Depression and World War II, were perhaps willing to live with a greater amount of risk than young parents are now. And, frankly, they weren’t being bombarded daily by a 24/7 news cycle that fuels itself by covering disaster after disaster after sensational disaster.
Which brings me — finally! — to your larger question. I’m pretty sure you’re not the only mother or father who feels the way you do. Even if the world really isn’t a scarier place than it was when I was growing up, it certainly feels that way. And I applaud you for wanting to do right by your children — for wanting to protect them while also understanding that overprotecting them isn’t good for them, either. In my opinion, children need some space away from the grown-ups who love them so they can learn to manage their own affairs without constant adult supervision, no matter how well-meaning that supervision is.
And maybe that’s the main takeaway here. Whenever you’re required to make a decision about an activity for your child, ask what he or she will gain from the experience, as well as what your level of personal involvement should be. Will that level of involvement help or hinder your child’s journey toward independent adulthood? Resist the temptation to let fear alone guide your decision-making process.
Having said all this, I pretty much hated it when my kids had sleepovers at our house. So there’s that. #trueconfessions
Ann Cannon is The Tribune’s advice columnist. Got a question for Ann? Email her at askann@sltrib.com or visit the Ask Ann Cannon page on Facebook.
