When my oldest was around two, I remember chatting with another parent whose child was about the same age, and he asked me, “So, should we start signing them up for music classes and stuff like that?”
To be clear, he wasn’t looking for something fun to do on a Saturday morning. What he meant was: Is it time to start giving our toddlers an edge?
I laughed it off and since then, I’ve mostly avoided signing my kids up for anything they didn’t ask or need to do. But as they get older, the temptation to optimize creeps in. You know, to make sure they’re hitting every milestone, enrolled in every enrichment and never “falling behind.”
Hey, I’m not judging—it makes sense that parents want their kids to succeed, and I know that it comes from a place of love. But lately, I’ve started wondering if things haven’t gotten a little out of hand. Do we really need toddler reading tips, kindergartner coding camps and tween internships? (OK, I made that last one up but it’s not that far-fetched!).
And yes, this is a privileged parenting problem to have, but it speaks to a bigger cultural obsession: the idea that we can (and should) engineer success from the womb. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, children today spend more of their discretionary time in organized lessons and clubs than they did two decades ago. But the results of this parental orchestration on later-life outcomes is mixed. One U.S. longitudinal study found that more extracurricular participation improves grades, but only up to a point; beyond that, added activities don’t translate into added gains. Meanwhile, another study linked high homework loads and scheduled enrichments with elevated anxiety and depression among teens.
It’s almost as if childhood has become one long obsession with unlocking our kids’ potential. And if we don’t, well, then that’s a failure on us as parents.
Take a friend’s third grader who was recently pulled out of class for extra reading help. Panicked, the mom got her evaluated—only to learn she was reading exactly at grade level. Still, the specialist recommended tutoring three times a week.
Or when my son said he wanted to sign up for chess class. I found one nearby, but it was full. Instead of waiting for the next session, I noticed an opening in a math class. Perfect, I thought. He can work on logic and strategy while getting ahead at school! Except he didn’t want to do math. He wanted to play chess.
Why the big push to constantly “upgrade” our kids? I recently spoke with Lisa Strohschein, a sociology professor at the University of Alberta, who studies modern parenting. She told me that in previous generations, kids’ futures were relatively predictable—sons followed their fathers’ careers, daughters followed their mothers’ paths. But now, she said, “Many of the jobs that the current generation of children will step into as adults don’t even exist yet. Parents can’t easily impart skills that are specific to their own jobs, as these may not be applicable or adequate preparation.”
So instead, she explained, “Parents view childhood as outcomes-based—constantly reflecting on what they’re doing today to prepare their children for future success.” And because we can’t know what “success” will even look like, we turn to experts. The internet, podcasts, endless parenting books. “There is no shortage of expert advice,” Strohschein said, “but all of it is focused on ensuring that your child can become their best possible self.”
The result is a generation of exhausted parents and over-scheduled kids.
A piece of parenting advice I think about a lot is this: Love the kid you have, not the one you wish you had. And maybe that’s the rub—when we focus so hard on who our children could be, we risk telling them that who they are isn’t enough.
