Giving Kids a Leg Up from Your Own Experiences

One of the "near universals" you gain when you become a parent...if you like your kids, anyway...is the desire to give your kid the things you didn't have growing up. If you grew up wishing that your parents had given you more books, you shower your kids with Barnes and Noble gift cards at the first sign that they're interested in flipping pages. If you grew up with parents you felt were oh so restrictive then you try to give your kids more freedoms.

We want to give our kids the benefits of our experiences. We feel we knew what sucked from our childhood and don't want our kids to have to endure the things we did, or make the same stupid decisions we made.

But there's a problem with that thinking.

I thought about this after arguing with someone about the latest fads in education making the rounds in the public schools in the area. I lamented that the politicians dictating and mandating rules for schools to follow had little to no experience dealing with kids (or parents) in the classroom. The mandates are impossible to follow.

I was thinking about this recently when I was pondering what I'd do if I won the lottery (who hasn't dreamed about that?). I thought that one thing I would do is sponsor a deserving student in paying for college. I'd have slight stipulations, small conditions that if they broke the rules they would be on their own in paying for the courses, but if they stayed within the rules they'd get a free education. It would be a marvelous opportunity in a time when four years of college cost as much as my house.

Then I thought about the kids that have everything given to them. Kids that had a free Mercedes or Corvette, and if they wrecked it, Daddy would pay for another. The kids that have cell phones and treat them as if they're disposable...drop it in the toilet? Mommy will pay for another one tomorrow. Hell, if they don't like their phone for some reason, some have intentionally destroyed it so they'd get a new one.

These are kids that treat other people as property because, hey, if they're not of any use to you, why bother talking to them?

These are kids that have all the benefits I lacked growing up (and then some). And because they didn't know what it was like to have to experience some of the suckitude of the world they didn't realize just how good they have it.

I didn't have a bad childhood by any measure. Humans are hardwired to find the shortcomings in their lives and make that the "thing" that would make them happy; my family wasn't poor, but we didn't own a boat. I'd really love a boat. We never ended up homeless, but I wanted a treehouse. Things like that.

So if I made sure my kids eventually had a boat and treehouse, I'm pretty sure my kids would be impressed for all of an hour before wishing we had a bigger boat and a treehouse with outlets.

I extended this thinking to the kids that I had in mind for giving the opportunity for a college education. If I won the lottery. That part is important.

Unless they were kids that truly came from families struggling to meet the middle-class level of life, and truly wanted to have that college education and knew, truly knew that they were on the brink of not getting it, they'd never realize the opportunity they had.

Moreover, part of who I am today came from making stupid mistakes and lacking some of the things I wanted. So by depriving kids of some deprivation, I might not be doing them a favor. They'll end up lacking life lessons from their failures because I handed a success to them, rather than letting them fail and having them pick themselves back up.

I can tell my daughter about the things I ended up regretting in life. I can tell her and warn her and she'll still be the "typical teen". She blinks and stares without comprehension. She ignores what I'm saying, focusing instead on excuses for why XYZ happened rather than listening to the point.

She doesn't even bother reading the blog as far as I can tell. And this is full of lessons and ideas I've pondered and observed. If she wanted to know more about me, I'm pretty open on this website about my ideas. Not everything, of course. Some things are best left to discretion. But there's still a pretty honest baring of who I am here in this blog. She could not care less.

So maybe it's best if you have the means to simply spend that inheritance on yourself. The kids will simply squander it, and if you truly care for your kids you'll dole out the benefit of your wisdom in moderation. Let them make mistakes rather than give them the means to bypass what you recalled as a pain. Give them enough that they can stay out of jail, but not so much that they treat computers and game consoles and cell phones as if they were as disposable as paper towels.