There was a good editorial in the Washington Post today about American life by Susan Coll. She talks about the stresses she and her family endures in the college admissions process specifically and in the competitiveness of upper middle class life in general. She says:
we glide right over the structural changes in society that have created a new culture of child-rearing, and some of the ways we respond are not entirely within our control. In other words, there may be something in the water supply that is turning us into nuts.
How much hovering does it take to qualify as a helicopter parent, and how many extracurriculars does it take to land you in the realm of the clinically extreme? It seems that at least part of the answer has to do with sprawl. Our suburban existence and our car-centric culture means that a disproportionate amount of time and energy is devoted to each activity: The joy of watching your kid kick a soccer ball is eclipsed by the dread of an I-270 commute to the Germantown SoccerPlex; the drum lesson becomes a logistical nightmare of rush-hour traffic and no place to park. And then, when lacrosse practice runs late, the already fragile scaffolding collapses as someone is stranded at a flute lesson, and dinner becomes an afterthought around the time that stomachs begin to growl.
Modern life whizzes by so fast. And our blind faith in technological and economic progress makes it hard for us to question or even perceive the changes that roll by.
But what do we really want out of life? And how do the patterns of modern life, the “structural changes” deny us from what we really want? So much is available to us in our incredibly prosperous society. The challenge is to decide to do less when prevailing culture always insists on doing more.
There is “something in the water” in my mind. The upper-middle class status quo in modern America is nuts. The lives that that status quo expects one are exhausting and lame. The strain comes from the high financial achievement that is expected. And, worst of all, most participants in it all don’t even realize how nuts it all is.
Somehow we need to realize how well we can all live with less, and with focusing our resources on collective goods instead of private ones. We’d be left with a lot more time and energy left for what really matters.
Great post! I struggle with this all the time. Our modern life is crazy, and just what is it we are all chasing after anyway? Of course we want to expose our children to experiences and live a full life, but how much is too much and where do we draw the line? And, is the simpler way of life just dying away? What if family decides to not do so much, just eat dinner together and forget all the activities? Will they fall behind, not fit in, fail in the society of the future becasue they don’t have the crazy skills/mania needed to survive? or will they just be the only people around that don’t need to go to therapy, but they won’t have any friends because they don’t have a peer group?
I think that humans are trying to keep up with all of the machinery, and technology. Everything is at our fingertips, and we want it NOW. We are brainwashed into thinking this way, it is Insidious. Television,
especially. and Virtual reality, computers, I am so glad I grew up in the 60’s, before the rush really got to be too much.
I feel sorry for young people these days…they have more to Unlearn than to learn.
I have all my life tried to avoid the mainstream, and done a good job of it.