The High Cost of the Rat Race that Starts in the Womb

As a parent, one thing I have noticed is that many parents today are hyper concerned about their children's achievement, even at a very early age. Everyone wants to do everything possible to get their kid into Harvard or some equivalent. I have to ask, why???

It has even started in the womb. From the instant I found out I was pregnant with my first child (actually even during the time just before I got pregnant) I altered my diet to be as nutritious as possible, and of course, organic. I dutifully took the best prenatal vitamins I could find.

All of this preparation came to a dramatic halt at week 6 of both of my pregnancies when I became so sick I could not hold any food down. I had to be given daily IVs for weeks just to stay hydrated. I was diagnosed with hyperemesis with both of my pregnancies. Forget about proper nutrition. My baby and I were in survival mode. Once I could finally keep something down I was living on whatever would stay down. For many months during my pregnancies, I was eating just popsicles and other cold sugary foods. Even the pre-natal vitamins would not stay down. During the times when I was sick I was not too concerned about how this would impact my children's future development. I just wanted to die.

Luckily we all survived (twice) and now I have children that are "competing" with other children who had mothers who were not sick, who were able to provide the very best prenatal environment complete with Mozart in the womb. Yes, there is some study out there that shows that if you do this your baby will be smarter. How could my children compete, given their less than ideal beginnings?

Guess what? So far, my kids are just fine. They are both healthy, happy kids. I could start bragging about how my kids did this or that early, but I find that kind of discussion annoying so I am not going to go there. Just know, my kids are just fine thank you. I'm starting to believe that a lot of this early childhood "enrichment" is just a load of hogwash.

Perhaps it is all about control. Parents want their kids to be "successful" and think they have ultimate control of any potential outcome. While parents certainly have some influence over their children, I would argue that if they exert too much influence and pressure, they will not get the results desired, or at least not the results that are best for the child.

So today I read an article about a woman who "red-shirted" her son so he could have an "edge" in kindergarten. This was not a boy who needed an extra year to be ready to kindergarten. This was a boy who was ALREADY READING!!!

This is outrageous! Since when is achievement so important that a small bump in the odds is worth an entire year of a child's life!

The same people who are red shirting are the same people who are hyper-competing to get their children into the best pre-schools. They will likely sign their kids up for anything and everything that might make a bit of difference on that Harvard application.

But is all of this preparation too much? I say yes!!! It is way too much. There was Cat Stevens song we used to sing at summer camp in the 80s that had the lyrics "But tell me, Where Do The Children Play?". It was a song about how progress was limiting the places left for children to play. I think today the song should read "WHEN Do The Children Play?". With all of the focus on activities and achievement, will kids ever get to be kids? Are we robbing our children of their childhoods just for the sake of a misguided attempt to raise their academic status? Are we simply preparing our children for a mental breakdown? And why do we want our kids to get into Harvard in the first place? Would that really make our children better adults or would it just make us look better when brag to other parents about how little Johnny is doing?

My father was an intelligent man. He used to always tell me "A state school is a good school". I really wanted to go to the Ivy League school, Cornell. He advised against it. We could not afford it away. At Cornell, there was a bridge that occasionally students would jump off of when the pressure was too much. It seemed so sad. At the state school I went to (SUNY Oswego) there was also a bridge, but interestingly enough, no jumpers. My point is that this endless pressure that we put on our kids may have dire results. If we continue to steer them towards the high achievement roles we want them to obtain, when will they learn to steer themselves? And by the way, after graduating from a state school, I turned out just fine, thank you.

Back to my original question: do we really want our children to go to Harvard in the first place? Perhaps only if they want to go. Even if they want to go, would all of this early preparation really have made a difference?

Let's take a look at the hyper-achievement oriented route from a purely financial route. Sure, the Mozart in the Womb do-hickey is not that expensive, but exclusive preschools and private schools are. You could also move to a public school district that is one of the top in the country. Expect to pay at least 600K for a house as fellow high-achievement-rat-race parents have bid up the prices on top school districts sky high. Let's say you are successful in getting junior into one of the top tier colleges. It will cost you over 550K per kid and that is just for undergrad. What does the future hold? A ton of debt! Parents would likely not be able to retire, and junior may also be drowning in student loan debt. What does junior do? With such an amazing degree, junior may only be able to find suitable employment in expensive high achievement areas of the country like Washington DC or NYC. Of course the cost of living in these places is out of control, just like the pressure is to achieve. The rat race just gets worse and worse.

I know a couple, neither of whom are college graduates and both work for Walmart. They can afford a house in Austin, TX if they wanted one. The areas they can afford are in the outskits of town, but they could have a nice 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom house if they so desired. I also know dual income prestigious degree wielding couples who are not able to buy a house in the Washington DC area where they work. Not that housing is everything, but the thought of working my tail off achieving more than most only to not be able to afford something as simple as a house would be most frustrating. I am starting to wonder if the Walmart couple had it right all along.

Sure high achievement has it's advantages, but I would not be so eager to place my child in the best-of-the-best rat race. That race has very few winners and a lot of burned out worn down losers.

I suppose it really comes back to what is the point of all of this? There is no awards ceremony at the end for those who walked first, potty trained the best, or got into the very best school. Kids need to figure out what the point is on their own. They need to forge their own paths. If we try to forge their path for them, they will never learn their true passions in life and may never be truly happy. Worse yet, they mat be stuck in the same or even bigger rat race than the one their parents ran. Is that what we want for our children?