The second, I think, suffer the most anxiety, because while they worry about the alternatives, they will not adopt the tiger mother style, which is just too alien, too different from the dominant, affirming style of affluent American parenting. Most of us would feel a little silly, if not false…

The trampoline, that upset them. We bought one of the big round ones for our eldest’s sixteenth birthday a few years ago, and parents we knew (mothers more than fathers) were appalled that we’d bought such a dangerous thing and horrified that our children were allowed to jump on it when we were not there. Fortunately, no one ever asked how many children we let on the trampoline at one time, since sometimes all four jumped on it at once.

Being yuppies, some of these parents insisted on telling us that they were appalled and horrified, and on parading before us their own meticulous care for their children and their anticipation and avoidance of all the possible dangers with which this sad world is loaded. Like we cared.

Once at a cookout, our youngest son and another boy, both seven or eight, were bouncing from opposite sides of the trampoline and bumping into each other in the middle, laughing hysterically as they fell down. Neither was a physically adventurous child, and they collided very gently. They loved the game, and would have played it for hours.

The other boy’s father and I were talking while we watched them, when the boy’s mother came over, drew her husband aside, and dressed him down in one of those hissed conversations that carry farther than intended. She was shocked at his carelessness in letting their son do something so dangerous. He came back and broke up the game.

If our older son had played the same game at the same age with his friends, they would have been bruised and possibly bloody, and the bruises and the blood would have been part of the pleasure. (This would have been true of me as well.) I can hear him telling the story later, in an excited, slightly boastful voice, explaining how we were knocking each other down and then we ran into each other really hard and we both got bloody noses and, mom, there was blood all over the place! And he would have been a happier boy for it.

Sometimes I feel we are the only parents left who would enjoy hearing our son say that there was blood all over the place. I am tempted to believe that I, only I am left, but of course there are others. But in certain areas and in certain social circles, not many. And in certain family sizes, like those with one or two children, almost none.

I thought of the yuppie parents and the upset mother when reading the discussion on the web of a Yale law professor’s now famous article on being a Chinese “tiger mother.” It seems clear to me that so many people responded so strongly to the article because they fear for their children’s futures. As far as I can tell, many of her critics and her supporters react to her article from fear or anxiety: the first because they fear the effect of such techniques on their children, the second because they fear the effects upon their children of the alternatives.

Read More: http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/2011/01/the-anxious-parent-1