Possible to be a laid-back mom in this area?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What is it like living in the midwest? Is it really more laid back? Can you give me an example? I'm not trying to be snarky, I'm curious because I've lived here most of my life.

I grew up in Colorado (questionably "midwestern"), and do notice a big cultural difference, especially when I compare my school years to DH's, who grew up on Long Island and was very status conscious w/ clothing, cars, schools, etc. There were popular kids at school, but people just didn't worry about that kind of stuff. I don't think we sent anyone to an Ivy League school, because nobody cares where you went to school, just if you are smart, hard working, and not a jerk. Just recently, I had someone (who is originally from overseas, but has spent decades in the US) tell me--after finding out that I grew up in Colorado--that he figured I must be from the west, because I have a very open personality. A lot of this is generalization, I know, but it is pretty real to me.

[Anonymous]

PP re: South Asian families, I agree that the culture can be very materialistic here. A lot of the SA moms I know are very competitive. Some of their husbands have done really well financially and they let you know it. A generalization, yes, but some of the kids are kind of spoiled too.

[Anonymous]

22:55, I don't think so. If someone lives their life happily and stress free on a high school or less education, more power to them. I am all for it. I think it unrealistic in the modern day America without inheirited wealth, but if it works for any given family, wonderful. Certainly one's level of education and achievement has no impact or correlation to how much a parent loves their child and wants to provide for them. What I am saying is that the adult children of parents who were "laid back," did not encourage competition, did not push rigorous education, and let happiness and ease rule the day -- those people, lots of them that I know personally don't think they have it better than me and don't lord it over me that they were footloose and fancy free while I was studying for 4 years of HS, 4 years of college, and 3 years of law school and the last 10+ learning my profession. In fact, the opposite is true, most express their longing for the financial security that I have because my parents demanded excellence and instilled a strong work ethic in their children. Most think my 4 bedroom, 2.5 bath, vinyl sided house that is unremarakble in EVERY way is a palace. Most are speechless and stupefied that I had the guts to leave a high paying job at my former firm to start my own practice -- one of the smartest moves I have ever made and one that I thank God that I had the courage to make. A move I never would have made if my parents had been laid back and not pushed education and achievement as goals.

My aunt specifically wanted her children to go to colleges that did not have a competitive stressful atmosphere. She wanted them to major in noncompetitive, stress free subjects. She told my mom flat out that she wanted her children to have no stress. The one who finished college, majoring in religion, has been pretty stressed out as an adult who will never earn enough money to buy a home, who has no healthcare benefits, who does not have any sort of retirement savings, and who will spend his adult life working as an asst manager at a restaurant -- once he finds another job. He wants more than that, but can't have it because he never learned how to compete, how to manage stress, how to fail and then try again. It is one thing to have been given the tools to compete and then to choose not to do so. Choosing simplicity is completely different than not to being able to better your life because you have never been asked to deal with the stress that comes with competition and demanding situations.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:22:55, I don't think so. If someone lives their life happily and stress free on a high school or less education, more power to them. I am all for it. I think it unrealistic in the modern day America without inheirited wealth, but if it works for any given family, wonderful. Certainly one's level of education and achievement has no impact or correlation to how much a parent loves their child and wants to provide for them. What I am saying is that the adult children of parents who were "laid back," did not encourage competition, did not push rigorous education, and let happiness and ease rule the day -- those people, lots of them that I know personally don't think they have it better than me and don't lord it over me that they were footloose and fancy free while I was studying for 4 years of HS, 4 years of college, and 3 years of law school and the last 10+ learning my profession. In fact, the opposite is true, most express their longing for the financial security that I have because my parents demanded excellence and instilled a strong work ethic in their children. Most think my 4 bedroom, 2.5 bath, vinyl sided house that is unremarakble in EVERY way is a palace. Most are speechless and stupefied that I had the guts to leave a high paying job at my former firm to start my own practice -- one of the smartest moves I have ever made and one that I thank God that I had the courage to make. A move I never would have made if my parents had been laid back and not pushed education and achievement as goals.

My aunt specifically wanted her children to go to colleges that did not have a competitive stressful atmosphere. She wanted them to major in noncompetitive, stress free subjects. She told my mom flat out that she wanted her children to have no stress. The one who finished college, majoring in religion, has been pretty stressed out as an adult who will never earn enough money to buy a home, who has no healthcare benefits, who does not have any sort of retirement savings, and who will spend his adult life working as an asst manager at a restaurant -- once he finds another job. He wants more than that, but can't have it because he never learned how to compete, how to manage stress, how to fail and then try again. It is one thing to have been given the tools to compete and then to choose not to do so. Choosing simplicity is completely different than not to being able to better your life because you have never been asked to deal with the stress that comes with competition and demanding situations.

I, for one, am still with 22:25 on this. A pressure-cooker childhood is not the only (or even the best) path to success in life.

[Anonymous]

I love how the typeA tightly wound DC spazzes jump in to parody themselves unwittingly on a thread about being laid back.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I love how the typeA tightly wound DC spazzes jump in to parody themselves unwittingly on a thread about being laid back.

LOL! Thanks for the morning chuckle! Couldn't agree more

[Anonymous]

:03:
You brought up some interesting points. I can understand how your aunt wanted her kids to grow up and be stress free. But on the other hand, it is important for kids to grow up with an understanding of how to work hard and be able to manage stress. I think it takes balance. My kids are little, so I have a long time before I have to deal with these issues, but it does give me pause. I grew up in this area, and I was just recently thinking about why should the teen years be like a pressure cooker? I did go to a "pressure cooker" type high school, but my parents were great in that they didn't pressure me a lot, but I still worked hard anyway. I think it depends on the kid, and making sure that they are still happy and enjoying themselves while teaching them how to manage the stress and to learn to work hard. It's easy for me to type this, then I will have to figure out how to go about doing it.

[Anonymous]

I'm the PP. Oops, I was addressing to 23:30, not :03.

[Anonymous]

Thought of you all this morning when I saw this:

Quit Treating Parents Like Babies
Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/07/AR2009050702967.html

And I'm not worrying about our TypeA friend here, because she's just setting up straw man. Nobody here said or implied that they weren't concerned about academic achievement or that they're trying to eliminate all stress from their child's life. OP's argument, with which many of us agree, is that there is an increasing (and possibly damaging?) amount of stress and competition placed on children and parents these days and we'd like to dial that back a bit. Here, I'll translate into TypeA: we place value in unstructured play in our children's development.

My mother is pretty laid back, but that doesn't mean she didn't push us to excel in school, to read, to participate in extracurriculars. I would actually argue that knowing when to buckle down and focus and when to relax and just play - whether you're a toddler or an adult - is healthier than constant, constant driving ambition. You don't have to agree.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Thought of you all this morning when I saw this:

Quit Treating Parents Like Babies
Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/07/AR2009050702967.html

And I'm not worrying about our TypeA friend here, because she's just setting up straw man. Nobody here said or implied that they weren't concerned about academic achievement or that they're trying to eliminate all stress from their child's life. OP's argument, with which many of us agree, is that there is an increasing (and possibly damaging?) amount of stress and competition placed on children and parents these days and we'd like to dial that back a bit. Here, I'll translate into TypeA: we place value in unstructured play in our children's development.

My mother is pretty laid back, but that doesn't mean she didn't push us to excel in school, to read, to participate in extracurriculars. I would actually argue that knowing when to buckle down and focus and when to relax and just play - whether you're a toddler or an adult - is healthier than constant, constant driving ambition. You don't have to agree.

Thank you for articulating what my sleep-deprived, addled brain isn't able to. I totally agree with this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I grew up here too. I went to college in upstate NY and law school outside of NYC. Give me the type A, competition laden, barracuda atmosphere here any day of the week. I went to a FCPS and it was a pressure cooker. No Cs allowed in my house. Current events, politics, etc were our dinner table conversation. I received a brand new car for my 16th bday. We took amazing vacations every year. I had all sorts of extra curriculars in school and out. Law school was a cake walk compared to high school. My friends and I all competed for and got into good colleges and many of us went on to graduate school.

I consider myself to be successful and happy. I contrast myself with the children of my parents friends from their respective hometowns and my cousins who grew up outside of this area and in a far less competitve area. One out of 4 of my cousins went on to college. That cousin is unemployed after having been laid off from his job at a chain restaurant. 1 of the other 3 is on welfare. The remaining 2 are working in jobs that will never yield much advancement. None of them has been able to buy a home. Only one saves for retirement -- rather, her husband who is a state employee saves for retirement. Of my parents friends from their respective hometowns, I think 1 child 5 or 6 families went on to college and lives any sort of an independent successful life. The rest bump from one job to another and never get ahead or are able to save. And believe me, when there is any sort of gathering of the clans, none of them tells me how much better they have it now since they had no pressure or competition when they were growing up.

You are comparing two extremes. It's not like the only choice is between living in your pressure cooker and being laid off from a chain restaurant.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I grew up here too. I went to college in upstate NY and law school outside of NYC. Give me the type A, competition laden, barracuda atmosphere here any day of the week. I went to a FCPS and it was a pressure cooker. No Cs allowed in my house. Current events, politics, etc were our dinner table conversation. I received a brand new car for my 16th bday. We took amazing vacations every year. I had all sorts of extra curriculars in school and out. Law school was a cake walk compared to high school. My friends and I all competed for and got into good colleges and many of us went on to graduate school.

I consider myself to be successful and happy. I contrast myself with the children of my parents friends from their respective hometowns and my cousins who grew up outside of this area and in a far less competitve area. One out of 4 of my cousins went on to college. That cousin is unemployed after having been laid off from his job at a chain restaurant. 1 of the other 3 is on welfare. The remaining 2 are working in jobs that will never yield much advancement. None of them has been able to buy a home. Only one saves for retirement -- rather, her husband who is a state employee saves for retirement. Of my parents friends from their respective hometowns, I think 1 child 5 or 6 families went on to college and lives any sort of an independent successful life. The rest bump from one job to another and never get ahead or are able to save. And believe me, when there is any sort of gathering of the clans, none of them tells me how much better they have it now since they had no pressure or competition when they were growing up.

A barracuda atmosphere is not the only environment to learn the merits of hard work and achievement. Plenty of people are motivated to do well by things other than competition. If it works for you, great. But it is not the only way, and to be honest, sometimes it backfires.

[Anonymous]

My brother and I grew up with very laid back parents. The emphasis was on spending time with family, spending time outdoors and reading books for fun. We were never pressured into getting certain grades, pursing X number of extracurricular activitites, (I don't think my brother ever did a thing outside of school from grades K-12).
We majored in religion/liberal arts and philosophy in college. Then we spent most of our twenties working random jobs, backpacking across the world, and living in various cities.
In our late 20's we went to law school and medical school respectively. Now we both have stable jobs and large incomes.

Do I regret spending the first 26 years of my life simply enjoying living and not chasing after success? Not in a million years. I cherish the time I had to just "be". I have the rest of my lifetime to put my nose ot the grindstone and work.

My husband and I plan on raising our children the same way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My brother and I grew up with very laid back parents. The emphasis was on spending time with family, spending time outdoors and reading books for fun. We were never pressured into getting certain grades, pursing X number of extracurricular activitites, (I don't think my brother ever did a thing outside of school from grades K-12).
We majored in religion/liberal arts and philosophy in college. Then we spent most of our twenties working random jobs, backpacking across the world, and living in various cities.
In our late 20's we went to law school and medical school respectively. Now we both have stable jobs and large incomes.

Do I regret spending the first 26 years of my life simply enjoying living and not chasing after success? Not in a million years. I cherish the time I had to just "be". I have the rest of my lifetime to put my nose ot the grindstone and work.

My husband and I plan on raising our children the same way.

Worked for me!

[Anonymous]

Ugh. Many of these posts are more disgusting than the ones on the private school board comparing their high HHIs.
newsflash for you all -- judging another mom because of what she HAS is just as bad as judging another mom for what she DOESN'T have.
If you got to know me, you probably would find me to be an extremely "laid back" mom, as our favorite activities are walks around the neighborhood, hours in the sandbox, digging in the dirt, and climbing the many really good trees around here. My kids don'treally have any activties right now because they are little and I hate having to be somewhere at a certain time when we are having fun in the yard. I really don't care if my kids eat McDs and I don't care how long any of you breastfed, or if you breastfed at all. All our clothes are from target and I don't care about that either, and I haven't seen my make-up bag since DD2 was born. (I wonder where it is, actually. I hope the dog didn't eat it.) Does that get me lots of points in your "I am the most laid back mom ever" contest?
BUT, I live in a big house, my sister bought me a bugaboo and I actually really like how it rides on these uneven sidewalks around here, and, I am ........the dreaded partner at a large law firm, as one PP so lovingly mentioned. And so is my DH.
So I guess you wouldn't want to be my friend. Ever hear of don't judge a book by its cover? Geez.