And Then There's Dad

Do They Think They're Better Than Us?

by Gary Drevitch

At age 6, he’s already got a season of Little League under his belt: I never played a single game. He’s played in several chess tournaments; I didn’t compete in anything like that until middle school. He’s about to start learning the piano; my greatest accomplishment with the instrument was, after an hour of experimentation recently in my father-in-law’s basement, being able to locate the notes to the “Do-Re-Mi” scale from “The Sound of Music.” He takes a weekly ballet class and has already performed in a recital; the closest I ever came was standing in the back row as an extra in our high-school show.

Many parents and parenting columnists complain that the modern parent has overscheduled his children, dragging them from activity to activity to begin filling up the “extracurricular” space on their college applications as soon as possible. By doing so, the critics say, we’re depriving them of precious free time to explore their world and play outside.