Parenting Evolution: From Inexperienced to Expert

Every once in a while, I happen to change the channel on the television and see a specific diaper commercial; the one commercial that says “first kid” and shows a clip of an incompetent mother trying to handle a child, and a follow-up clip saying “second kid”, showing the same mother, now experienced, having no trouble at all dealing with her children. The first time I saw the commercial, the clips meant absolutely nothing to me, though the commercial was a creatively effective way of selling their product. After seeing the videos more than once, I began to wonder if my parents were anything like this when I was younger. Based on the stories that they told me about myself when I was smaller, they sounded like they had all of the answers. If

They run around and play with toys, run through the woods, and act obnoxious. When I was this age, I was obnoxious to say the least, but as for other characteristics, my parents took special care in smothering out anything that presented itself as ‘dangerous.’ “This type of parenting or smothering rather than mothering, is ineffective and fails to instill virtues and values such as responsibility, courage, self-esteem, self-respect, and confidence in your child” (Overprotective par. 10). I could not run through the woods with other kids, and I could not venture too far away from an older person. As a kid, I always wanted one thing: a trampoline. Almost every one of my friends had a trampoline, except for me, of course. Because a trampoline is made to fling people into the air, my parents, particularly my father, were worried this toy could toss me off and injure me. For this reason, my father strictly forbid our family from owning one, and discouraged me from being on someone else’s. While I see why my parents did not want me to have one of these, I lost a large part of my childhood to their overprotectiveness (I am using the trampoline symbolically as a number of other