Anti-Badass Child Rearing: Smothering children with "love"

Imagine this scene at the ski resort:

A very well-to-do, venture capitalist, Chinese mother and her child are preparing for a day out on the mountain. The child, almost five years old, is feeling itchy. So he asks his mother to help him scratch. She obliges, cooing and soothing the child, while scratching him all over. He tells her that she's not scratching in the right place, and points to his groin. So she gets on her knees, unzips his bib, reaches into his pants, and starts scratching his balls. This satisfies him for a few moments, but soon after, he continues to complain about other itchy areas. After about 5 minutes of this, he gets distracted by other things. The Badass Gentleman observed all of this, silently astounded.

This happened

I had promised to help the mother take care of her kid for the day, so she could get some quality snowboarding time in. What I didn't anticipate was how much I would learn about child rearing that day.

To make a long story short, the child essentially refused to do anything himself. His two favorite phrases were, "I can't do it" and "Help me!" (in that order). And while, at first glance, it seems like a kind of childish helplessness, it is actually an adult-like exercise of power through emotional manipulation. You might say, that this kid was (unwittingly) getting trained to become a master manipulator. And seeing it from the child's point of view, why wouldn't he act that way? Not only does he get to revel in the power of getting people to do his bidding, he also doesn't have to lift a finger to do anything. Win, win for him.

A glimpse into the kid's future...

Needless to say, the Badass Gentleman chose not to play this particular game, and firmly countered that child indeed could do all of the things he claimed he couldn't. I happily showed him on my own board, but didn't do anything for him. Sure it took longer, but when he recognized that I wasn't playing along, he tried harder. Eventually, he learned to strap in and stand up by himself. As mundane as that sounds, it took over 40 minutes.

This kid is in the 3rd generation of China's one-child policy (recently expanded to two). And these rich families all have nannies, and oftentimes doting grandmothers, all focusing their attention on that child. In another family, the grandmother would ask the child what he wanted for dinner, each and every day. When he decided that he wanted KFC every day for a week, that's what the family had to eat. The parents chose instead to secretly sneak out to eat. It's no wonder that the children become accustomed to being completely spoiled. They simply don't know another way to be treated, or more importantly, to treat others.

We had dinner together, later that evening. The mother was explaining that "Chinese" child rearing was different from "Western" child rearing, smiling for sympathy as she force fed her child rice while he played games on his iPad mini. She then tells me that all parents want their children to be independent and capable, but is unable to answer what she thinks is the best way to do that. The cognitive dissonance is too great. After some time, literally fed up with his mother's devotion, the child angrily told his mother that he could feed himself. She looked a bit shocked, and then continued to try and feed him a few minutes later.

Pretty sure this is what the kid actually wants

Everyone has the right to raise their children the way they see fit. I write this only as an illustrative piece. Clearly, the mother is gaining something from this game they are playing. Perhaps she feels guilty about all the time she spends on work, away from home. Maybe her own parents were extremely strict, and she wants to be the exact opposite. Whatever the case may be, there are consequences to her actions, that she chooses not to confront.

For my own epistemological pursuit (learning about learning), I came away with this: children gain tremendous fulfillment in their own journey of discovery and mastery. When we take all of this joy away from them, we force them to seek fulfillment in other, potentially less constructive, ways. It's probably easier to raise a Badass than an Anti-Badass. Which one will you choose?