R E C E N T L Y

The face of Zorro
By Luis Valdez
For 80 years, Zorro has been the shining star of a mythical California, set in a time and place that never existed. In "The Mask of Zorro," he still is
(07/22/98)

Zorro vs. Tarzana
By Stephen Talbot
How the masked avenger taught a white kid from the suburbs that California's past -- and its present -- was older, darker and more soulful than he had ever dreamed
(07/22/98)

Drama Queens
Bad trips: The road to hell is paved with good intentions, pickle-flecked vomit and the MLA convention
(07/21/98)

Censorship and sensibility
By Inda Schaenen
Should kids be able to read anything they want?
(07/17/98)

Slice of life
By Maurine Shores
Memories of a cake that tasted like summer
(07/16/98)

BROWSE THE SALLIE TISDALE ARCHIVES

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Mamafesto
By Camille Peri
Why it's time
for Mothers Who Think

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THE DEMISE OF DISCIPLINE: THIRD OF THREE PARTS | PAGE 1, 2
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I am dizzied by the bulging and inexplicably varied calendars of many families I know. Those parents, of course, think I deprived my children -- deprived them of skills needed to succeed in the world, and of all those little boosters to the ego. All this mad activity and competition is in the service of self-esteem -- in the name of "enrichment." And enrichment, of course, is what we add to our lives because we don't find them rich enough as they are. What little time is left over at the end of the wearing day is called, in a quintessentially American irony, "quality time."

So our lives are divided into fragments: work, home, friends, all the commuting in between, all the phone time to keep them from falling apart. Our children's lives are divided into school, day care, after school, home, neighborhood -- and rushing to get ready to leave one realm for the other. We also divide our lives into "adult" activities and "kid" activities, afraid to take our children to the former because they might act like ... children.

We hurry our children constantly -- not just today, this afternoon, but throughout their lives, never letting them rest in the pursuit of that elusive self-esteem. (No one pauses to wonder how one's sense of self, how serenity, is damaged by this pursuit.) They are unused to ordinary, unpressured group socializing with people of different ages. That our children often don't know how to behave courteously or unobtrusively, that so many children are disruptive and demanding in groups, shouldn't come as a surprise. Fragmented lives and weak boundaries tend to go together.

The parents I know who are most indulgent, most overtly concerned with their children's self-esteem, are also the most depressed and lonesome people I know. Convinced they are victims of their own parents, that their malaise is the result of being deprived in childhood, they are determined to deprive their children of nothing (nothing but time and boundaries). Needs will be met, hurt feelings soothed, hungers fed, desires satisfied, all potential talents identified and enriched, all potential weaknesses counseled away. All will be individualized. Other people -- let alone the strangers who make up a community -- will not be a factor in the equation. We American boomers are stubbornly private and self-declarative. In exchange for the freedom to ignore community, we miss out on what it is to declare for others, and for all. We miss out on what it feels like to just be one among many, keeping each other company, passing the time. We are victims -- of consumption, of the tyranny of self-obsession, of our own deadly urge to self-actualize ourselves to death.

How spoiled we are, and how sad. I watch a woman with two children in an upscale grocery store. She is examining the baby asparagus, and they are bored. "Go eat some grapes," she tells them, and they scamper down the aisle and begin pulling fruit off and popping it in their mouths. Why should they be forced to wait? That she has just told them to steal in plain sight has probably not occurred to her. And I have to wonder how many little cheats fill her own daily life, how many ways she justifies instant gratification, how many times she feels deprived and hungry in her expensive day.
SALON | July 23, 1998

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R E L A T E D_.S A L O N_.S T O R I E S

The Demise of Discipline:

Part One: Spoiled rotten Stop worrying about bruising your children's precious egos and start worrying about turning them into big babies.
By Sallie Tisdale
June 25, 1998

Part Two: Keeping each other company It's easy to say that it takes a village to raise a child, but we don't have villages -- we have corporate day-care centers.
By Sallie Tisdale
July 9, 1998

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How to ruin your kid's summer vacation If your children could tell you what they really want to do for vacation, you might find out that your meticulous plan to keep them occupied this summer is all for naught.
By Kate Moses
June 9, 1998