My sister recently told me about an elaborate hot wheels themed party her co-worker threw for her 5 year old son. She mentioned staying up late to finish the handmade decorations, complete with the personalized license plates she had made for all the kids in his class.

Don’t feel sorry for me when I tell you that I don’t remember one of my birthday parties before the age of 16. I honestly don’t. I think there’s a few photos in the family albums to show proof that they took place, but I don’t have any actual memories. And I don’t feel any less loved because of it.

I recently read an article by Jen Hatmaker (why she’s an author and not a hat maker, I don’t know) that talks about how “precious” parenting today has become.

She writes, “When I think about upping the joy in parenting and diminishing the stress, I propose that much of our anxiety stems from this notion that our kids’ childhood must be Utterly Magical; a beautifully documented fairytale in which they reside as center of the universe, their success is manufactured (or guaranteed), and we over-attend to every detail of their lives until we send them off to college after writing their entrance essays”.

I think social media has a lot to do with this. Sites like Pinterest can make one feel like cupcakes made out of a box are a piece of shit. If you follow me on instagram, you may remember me bitching about spending some $25 on Hooper’s Valentines for his class; I fell victim to the Pinterest trap. We’re constantly seeing other things moms are doing on Facebook and Instagram; many fall victim to constantly comparing and I think many feel guilty or develop low self-esteem when they feel like they can’t measure up.

Hatmaker states, “Nothing steals joy away from parenting more than believing you are doing a terrible job at it”. She goes on to say that her trick for holding onto the joy and letting go of the stress is to ask herself what her own mom would have done.

I pose this question to anyone reading this post: what did your mom do? What were your birthday parties like? What’d you do when you got home from school? How did you spend your summer breaks? What kinds of things in your childhood do you remember your mom taking an active role in?

My birthday parties were usually in the backyard and the attendees were usually the neighborhood kids mixed with a few close friends from school. I spent much of my after school time at the gym. Gymnastics was my life because I loved it. My parents never pushed me. In fact, I can remember them suggesting I call it quits after each broken bone. I also remember them griping here and there about the cost per month. My parent’s never patrolled my homework. Rather, when report cards came and I didn’t do so well in a particular subject, that’s when we’d have a talk. I have lots of memories playing with the neighborhood kids; house hopping and riding bikes and teaching a neighborhood gymnastics class in my front yard, selling lemonade, roller skating in the garage, trying to set a leaf on fire with a magnifying glass, and so on and so forth. It’s not that my parents were negligent or not involved, it’s just the way things were. I never doubted their love for me, ever.

But it’s not really like that anymore. Today, parents seem to think that “chopper” parenting is somehow more beneficial and responsible and that hovering over every move their kid makes is some sort of proof of their love for their child.

I rarely bring my kids to parks, but when I do, I bring a book. Sometimes I actually read it, sometimes I just pretend. But I do so intentionally to allow my boys the freedom to figure shit out on their own. Everything from how to get down from the ladder they climbed up to dealing with other children in both positive and negative ways are things I want them to figure out on their own. The way I see it is like this: It’s my job to teach them in the home how to behave, how to ask for help, how to be kind, etc and then, when they’re out in the world, it’s their job to practice; which includes making mistakes.

I would raise a girl the same way.

Have you ever been mean to someone? I’m sure we all have some recollection of saying or doing something we regretted. I want them to feel that, on their own, without me jumping in. If I notice them not sharing, it’s something I prefer to talk about on the way home, after that presumed shitty innate feeling of being a dick has had time to set in and register.

In reflecting back on her own childhood, Hatmaker writes, “They didn’t worry endlessly, interfere constantly, safeguard needlessly, or overprotect religiously. They just raised us. And we turned out fine… It never crossed my mom’s mind to ‘entertain us’ or ‘fund expensive summer endeavors’ or ‘create stimulating activities for our brain development.’  She said get the hell outside, and we did.”

She goes on to raise some important questions, “Could it be that we are simply too precious about parenting? Have we forgotten the benefit of letting our kids fail? Figure it out? Work hard for it? Entertain themselves? We put so much undue pressure on ourselves to curate Magical Childhoods, when in fact, kids are quite capable of being happy kids without constant adult administration. I would argue that making them the center of the universe is actually terribly detrimental. A good parent prepares the child for the path, not the path for the child. We can still demonstrate gentle and attached parenting without raising children who melt on a warm day.”

I want my boys to be strong. I want them to be able to navigate around all the lemons life seems to toss out. I want them to be self-aware and independent. I don’t want them to melt on warm days, for goodness sakes. I strongly believe that by doing less, I’m doing more. And it’s a relief. I see entire blogs dedicated to featuring spectacular kids birthday parties and I giggle to myself. I think of the sense of entitlement I see so many young people enter the work force with and the dots start to connect themselves. It baffles me that in a time where we’re seemingly doing more than ever as parents, so many of us feel like we’re not doing enough.

Hatmaker ends the article with a healthy reminder that we have everything our children need for success, “…kisses, Shel Silverstein books, silly songs, kitchen dance parties, a backyard, family dinner around the table, and a cozy lap. They’ll fill in the rest of the gaps and be better for it. Your kids don’t need to be entertained and they don’t need to be bubble-wrapped; they just need to be loved.”

I’m constantly reminding myself to let go; to allow them the space they need to explore and to celebrate their independence. Because at the end of the day, they aren’t going to remember the decorations you made for their party or their custom baked birthday cake, they’re just going to remember that they were loved.