Are children these days becoming perfectionists? Whether it’s playing water polo or learning Spanish, I watch children attempt an activity, quickly calibrate if they will be good at it and then decide whether to continue. “I am not good at it,” is an often-given reason for not pursuing a skill, talent or musical instrument.
I read the book, The Confidence Code: The Science and Art of Self-Assurance – What Women Should Know, with dismay and understanding. In it, the authors argue that a combination of self-doubt and a desire for perfection often cripple women from achieving their full potential. Perhaps it is nostalgic idealism, but the girls of my generation were not this way. We took greater risks with our choices, mostly because the downside was so low. Societies and cultures didn’t focus on “success” so much.
Certainly, we didn’t have as many opportunities or as much attention from the adults in our lives. My parents were around but not necessarily engaged in my life when I grew up. My father was a busy professor and my mother was engaged in the business of life. There was always a stream of relatives who had to be taken care of, visiting grandparents and erratic gas connections that needed to be sorted out.
I remember my parents nagging my brother and me to study or finish our homework, but they certainly weren’t clued-in to the minutiae of my life. We had long summer holidays in which we were pretty much left to our own devices. We were forced to amuse ourselves by catching grasshoppers or playing endless games of Monopoly. It was a boring life when compared to the rich variety of activities and pursuits that my children enjoy – but it was also one in which the stakes were low. My parents’ sense of worth wasn’t tied to our achievements as children.
I’ve recently begun to question the level of involvement that I have had in my children’s lives. Would I serve them better by ignoring them or at least detaching myself somewhat from their goals?
Every parent wants to raise children with a few basic characteristics: a strong work ethic, a desire for improvement, the ability to enjoy what life gives them, the resilience to combat and rise from hardships, compassion, altruism, some amount of self-awareness, humility and the courage to pursue a dream. All of this amounts to that nebulous quality that we call self-worth. All parents want to raise children with a strong sense of self-worth. The only problem is that it is tricky to engineer this. Self-worth, like many things in life, has to be gained, not given.
I have tried waterskiing three times in my life. The first time was in Michigan, where a friend who lived on the river took a bunch of us summer campers out on his boat. I was abysmal at it. I couldn’t even stand up. The water rushed towards my face as the boat sped up. Breathless and gurgling with frustration, I tried to yank myself up on the skis and failed within three seconds, tumbling into the water.
My humiliation was made worse by the fact that all my friends seem to pick up this skill for standing up on a moving waterski within a couple of tries.
The second time I tried it was in Goa. This time I took a class, but the same thing happened. My instructors would yell from the speeding boat while I tried to balance on my haunches and hold the rope tightly. Again, within a couple of seconds, I let go of the rope and sank into the water.
Recently, on a trip to Sri Lanka, I tried waterskiing again. This time, I was able to stand up. I cannot begin to tell you how joyous it made me feel; and how much it added to my sense of achievement. Best of all, I had earned it.
The trick for any parent is to help their child find such experiences – where they fail at first and then, after a struggle, succeed. That, more than anything, leads to self-worth.
Shoba Narayan is the author of Return to India: a memoir