The Mothers' Fear of Failure in Paula Spencer's Article

“So after all my sacrifices for you, this is how you repay me?” These are not the words a dedicated mother would love to say to her child. But unfortunately Mrs. Ashley, an honorable woman of wealth, thought she had raised her daughter properly by putting sufficient funds in her child’s education with little or no attention. In the end, her child turned out to be a drug addict and a harlot. Paula Spencer’s article, “We Protect Kids From Everything But Fear,” expresses her view that the fear of every dedicated mom is to be a failure in bringing up their child, in an appropriate manner. So I agree with Spencer’s assessment about the way American Parents raise their children.

In her captivating article, Spencer maintains that the recent generations of America moms are overprotective towards the welfare of their children. She gathers examples of her neighbors and also herself. They are afraid that their children might get hurt at the playground, their nutritional intake, educational grades, status of the schools they attend, missing out on sports scholarship, and even insufficient use of hand sanitizers to protect them from falling sick. She urges mothers to worry less and rather focus on other profitable concerns such as how they would earn a good retirement. However, she claims that no matter how a parent protects their child from harm, a mistake is bound to happen.

Parents who are over protective towards their children tend to be afraid of everything. They get themselves involved in things that do not count. Sometimes, as a result of the time spent in bringing up their children, they become less productive to the rest of their family and also the government. Some of our parents most especially our mothers, were trained on becoming Lawyers, Secretaries, Social workers, Clerks etc, but of them dropped it after four to six years of schooling all in the name of protecting their kids. When I was growing up, my mom was over towards my siblings and me. My school was just a stone throw from our house, but still she would take us to school and bring us back. Even when we went to parks or our friends’ houses, she also followed us. I kept on hoping that everything would stop, until the day both my dad and her got into an argument about it. Henceforth, she decided to let us be, by dividing her time for both herself and for us. Spencer maintains that fears will always be there but moms should learn to tame it. In addition, children are meant to explore their world, and when they fail to, problems are bound to happen in future. My neighbor, Mr. Peter has a child named Mike. He never allowed Mike to socialize with his friends neither to attend parties nor educative programmes. All he cared was for Mike to study all day and become a medical doctor. Eventually, Mike became a medical doctor but in the same day of Mike’s graduation, he gave his father the certificate. Mr. Peter got humiliated in front of everyone. He went singing in clubhouses, birthday parties, symposiums, and weddings which had always been his dream. If Mr. Peter had allowed Mike to explore his world, it would have not led to this.

Furthermore, I think Spencer is too extreme when she says, “Yes, these very kids we want to be so self-sufficient, responsible, confident, happy and creative (not to grow up thinking these – obsessed).”She forgot that these kids want everything to be done in their own way and when they make mistakes their mother are always blamed for it. We know that there’s no one bound to make mistakes and the new age children are easily attracted by everything around them, so this gives room for parental control to be exercised. So Spencer and every other American mother should try to believe in their children in handling some certain things and children should also try to win the hearts of their parents.