Underparenting

Lately there's been heaps of talk about "overparenting." The New Yorker labeled it "The Child Trap": when accomplished well-educated people view their children as their latest project, as extensions of their successes as adult, and coddle them to distraction.

Overparenting is over-catering to your children and signing them up for every imaginable afterschool activity to sharpen their developing brains, turn them into little geniuses, and set them up for Ivy League educations.

I'm worried that I'm underparenting.

Most 1st graders at Nishimachi have unbelievably busy schedules. On top of 30-60 minutes of homework every night in reading, spelling, math, writing and Japanese, most children have afterschool lessons four days a week. It's typical to hear that these 6 or 7 year olds are learning piano or violin; soccer, tennis or ballet; French or Chinese; have tutoring in Japanese at least once a week, and/or go to Kumon to practice speed-math.

The academic and music training (and pressure to do all of it) may be more intense here than in the US, though, having said that, my 6 yr old nephew, who goes to public school in Iowa City, takes Suzuki piano, scores heaps of goals on his soccer team, and adds up 3-digit numbers in his head.

In any case, knowing and hearing about these other children is making me insecure that I'm the outlying underparent. I keep telling myself that "She's only 6 years old!", but maybe I'm too laid back about Lucinda's schedule.?

This is what Lucinda does every week: She wanted to take hula lessons on Mondays. She has a Japanese tutor on Thursdays. She sometimes has Brownies on Fridays. She doesn't like sports where there's a winner and a loser, quit soccer after one semester last year, and has so far refused tennis. She plays tag for three recesses a day and likes to come home after school to draw pictures, play with her little brother, have a playdate when I can arrange it, watch TV for an hour while I make supper, and do her homework before bed.

Am I underparenting? I'm not sure. Lucinda is doing well in school but not astonishingly so, and I worry that adding new tasks will make her feel exhausted and pressured. But maybe I'm missing an opportunity to introduce her to experiences - especially music or Kumon's math program - that require a fair amount of time and practice? It's a parenting dilemma for the modern age.