Everything for the child
May I ask you an impertinent question?
What status symbols are important to you?
Please, don't be shy, nobody has no status symbols. We all value certain things that signalise that we are on the right side, have made it in life or are more distinguished than others. My status symbol? Happy children.
Few things warm my heart more than the sight of our daughter coming home from an outing beaming with joy. Nothing has given our little family more lasting reassurance than the news that our son has found an apprenticeship.
And I have never been closer to him than when he prevented an attack by the opposing team with a clean tackle in the juniors and grinned proudly at me on the touchline.
The problem: in sociology, what I'm feeling is called «child-centredness». If I've understood it correctly, it's about making your own happiness dependent on someone else's happiness. That alone is already bad. But in this case, it is a child - our own! - that we make responsible for our well-being.
In a child-centred family, the needs and demands of the parents are no longer at the centre of the family, but those of the child. Many people will recognise this: You put your own interests behind those of the child. Emotional needs shift from the partner level to the relationship with the child.
In concrete terms, child-centredness means that we barter with the child: We love you and will try to do everything right - healthy eating, Astrid Lindgren up and down, nursery (but not every day), forest kindergarten, early education (but not too much), maybe even Montessori school... - but in return we want you to be healthy and happy.
A happy child is the status symbol of our successful life.
We would never put it like that. We say: We love you just the way you are. And that's true. And at the same time, there is an implicit, often unconscious expectation that we parents have of the child: we do everything for the child - so that they turn out well. So that they do well. So that we do well.
We want the best for the child? Yes, of course we do. But we also want the best for ourselves. A happy child is the status symbol of our successful life. In psychology, we speak of transference when we project our own fears, insecurities, hopes and needs onto others.
By feeling sorry when our child has had a bad day at kindergarten and beaming when they get a good mark, we are not only signalling «we feel for you» and «we understand you», but also «you are responsible for our well-being».
The child becomes a quasi-religious saviour figure who is not only supposed to make the family happy, but even save the whole world (Fridays for Future). But the truth is: no child can fulfil all these expectations. Of course, that is an exaggeration.
And it's certainly not good to neglect your child. But we have to ask ourselves: who exactly are we doing this whole perfect-childhood thing for? For the child - or ultimately for ourselves?
