Raising the Awesome Child
In other such ads for nannies, private tutors, and babysitters, you are likely to encounter parents describing their children as gifted, precocious, or incredibly smart. What is so interesting is that these amazing children seemed not to exist in America some 30 years ago. “Sitter needed for 4-year-old boy twice a week” has given way to “Sitter needed for precious, dare-devil, political (in a good way) amazing 4-year-old.”
In an earlier era, describing your own children in such superlatives would have been seen as gauche, at best. Now it is normal, even expected. A parent who avoids such language might be regarded as someone whose kids are simply failing to measure up—or worse, whose own parenting was failing to measure up.
What does the relatively recent proliferation of amazing children reveal about American parents and American parenting culture as a whole? To be sure, parenting in America resists easy characterization, in part because of this nation’s racial, ethnic, and social diversity. The existence of vastly different parenting styles and intense debates about what is best further complicate the picture. Yet if there is one thing studies have documented during the last 30 years, it is that Americans suffer from a common myopia: Others may have problems, but we are doing just fine, thank you.