Hi,

Summer just started for us in Georgia and kids are home now and my younger son keeps asking me the same thing every morning: "What are we doing today?"

Most times, I’m like-”you figure it out”

I know that probably can come out harsh, but I remember when I was 10, my parents weren't planning my day. They weren't running my social life or researching camps or scheduling playdates or moderating who I texted. I went outside. I found other kids and siblings and that’s how summers were. 

We all know that's not how it works anymore and I think we got some of this right, and some of it very wrong.

So I want to walk you through it because I think there's a way to take the best parts of how our parents raised us and the best parts of how we're raising our kids and stop doing the rest.

MODERN PARENTING: HOW WE GOT HERE

Parents are way more involved in their kids' lives now than they used to be. This is not a secret. Everyone knows it.

But the why is worth talking about, because it's not just that we suddenly decided to be helicopter parents. It's that the world around us changed.

In the 80s and 90s, there was a natural community. Kids went outside, found other kids, and played. Some neighborhoods still have that, but unfortunately most don't. Families travel more now, they have packed schedules. One kid is at camp this week, another's away the next. The free, unstructured pack of neighborhood kids? Mostly gone.

So if you want your kid to do anything other than sit on a screen, you have to plan it. You have to drive them. You have to call the other parent. You have to be involved.

We didn't choose this level of involvement. The conditions chose it for us.

THE PART WE GOT RIGHT

One aspect of modern parenting, I’ll defend till the end of time is that we show up.

Not just to the school plays everyone goes to. To the small things. The Tuesday game nobody's watching. The audition that probably won't go anywhere. The recital where your kid has one line.

That wasn't always the norm. A generation ago, plenty of parents skipped that stuff not because they didn't care, but because they didn't see it as a big deal.

I know adults who still carry that. They remember the matches their parents didn't come to. They remember the empty seats. It stays with you.

So when today's parents move things around to be there, when they sit through the four-hour tournament with one inning of action, when they show up to a play even though theater isn't their thing, it truly matters. That's not over-involvement, it’s love showing up where it's seen.

I think this is one of the genuinely good shifts of modern parenting. We figured out that being there for the big stuff and the small stuff that feels big to your kid is the part you don't get back.

THE PART WE GOT WRONG

But then there's the other side. Somewhere along the way, "be present" turned into "be involved in everything."

Plan every minute of every day. Research camps, manage friendships. Drive them there. Pick them up and solve the problem before it becomes a problem.

I'll be honest I feel the pull of it. My younger son's iPad is connected to mine, so I can see chats come through. I don't read them. But I see them and there's this curiosity- what are they saying about each other? Are they being mean? Should I step in?

It's not even pressure. It's curiosity. I want to know what's going on. But I have to manage that, because my older son is 13, and if I'm in his business all the time, he never gets to learn how to handle things on his own.

I actually want it where he says something a little dumb and learns it didn't land. He needs to feel his own consequences.

That's the thing about over-involvement,  it's not just exhausting for the parent. It's worse for the kid.

We all met someone in college who was sheltered their whole life and then went completely off the rails the second they got out of the house. Their parents had been so involved, so controlling, so on top of everything and the second that control disappeared, so did any sense of how to handle themselves.

I don't want my boys to be those kids.

HOW I'M TRYING TO DRAW THE LINE

My mantra: Show up big. Step back small.

Show up for the things that matter to them. The game. The performance. The hard day. The big moment, and the small moment that's secretly big.

But step back from the things they can figure out themselves and there are way more of those than we usually realize.

Some examples from my house:

When the boys want to do a camp or a class, they research it. They look it up, make a list, tell me what they're interested in. I do the sign-up, that's it.

We've also started teaching them about investing,  give them $50, let them figure out where to put it. They'll mess up, that's the point.

When my 10-year-old asks me what we're doing today? Most days, I tell him to come up with something. Even when he doesn't want to, especially when he doesn't want to because we get used to doing things for our kids when they're little, and we don't notice they've grown.

They can handle more than we give them credit for. Almost always more.

So my rule of thumb is when I catch myself stepping in to plan or fix or manage, I ask: Could he do this himself?

If the answer is yes, I hand it back.

Though, there's something a lot of parents don't say out loud and it’s that most of us want to be more hands-off than we are.

Every parent I talk to says some version of the same thing: I wish our kids would just go out and play. But then nobody does it, because of all the logistics. Or the other kids aren't around. So we step in.

Sometimes you have to. But it means we have to be intentional about the moments we can step back too. Our parents got the independence part right. They let us get bored and figure things out. They let us mess up and learn.

We got the showing-up part right. We're there for the moments that count.

The trick is doing both.

Note for My Fellow Laid-Back Parents

You don't have to be at every minute of your kid's day.

You have to be at the ones that matter to them.

The rest? They can figure it out. Believe it or not, they probably want to.

The most useful thing you can do today is hand something back. Pick one thing you've been doing for them- researching, planning, smoothing over, scheduling and let them try it. Don't fix it when it gets wobbly.

Show up big. Step back small.

The big stuff is where you live in their memory. The small stuff is where they learn to live without you.

See you next week,
Lakshmi 💛

📺 LAKSHMI WATCHES THIS WEEK:

Three things I watched this week when I needed a few minutes to myself: 

🎬 Movie Trailer I Found Interesting:

📱 Random Video I found:

👨‍👩‍👧 Parenting Moment That Hit: