Tal Araim explains why over loving your children doesn’t work to compensate for the lack of love from your partner.
When it comes to us couples, there is one thing that puzzles me: most of us can be so blind to repetitive patterns. We are experts at noticing other people’s behaviours without ever considering that we might be looking at a mirror. We’ve all heard ourselves, or our coupled friends, say things about non-present parties: ‘She always interrupts him,’ or ‘He never backs her up.’ ‘He’s scared to make any decisions without first checking with her,’ or ‘She gets irritated if the kids ask him and not her,’ and so on. Humans are quite good at recognising such behaviours in others. However, I wonder how many of us would be willing to hear what others genuinely think of us as a couple?
Helicopter Parenting or Modern Parenting
One topic that ruffles a feather or two is parenting, in particular, overparenting or helicopter parenting. Very few can be critical of their own parenting skills; conversely, the majority can readily point a negative finger at other people’s parental behaviours. It doesn’t take a mathematician to work out that there is a discrepancy here.
Whether you think you are guilty of overparenting or not, the truth is that overparenting is on the rise. One reason could be that what was seen as overparenting decades ago is now seen as the norm. If this has led to an improvement, we can stop calling it ‘overparenting’ and simply call it ‘modern parenting.’ To try and see if this increase in overparenting has benefited us and our children, let’s take a closer look at this behaviour, its effects, and its probable causes.
