A future blue stocking?

Actually, no - we are NOT pushy parents:

Littlest was just interested in the pictures of polar bears and penguins on the inside back page of the university alumni magazine.

No chains binding her to the bench; the only tiger in the house being the soft fluffy one upstairs in her bed; the only love being kind, not tough.

Honest.

I, not Littlest, contrary to what the picture might suggest, read some of the magazine. There is an article about pushy parenting and its consequence, which too often is a loss of youth.

I can't comprehend the near-abusive, bullying approach to parenting that tiger mothers, or helicopter parents, adopt. Their stand is blinkered to everything but their child's success. Children, their imagination quashed, lose the ability to entertain themselves - my children love the holidays and hours of quiet downtime, but I know far too many, otherwise rational parents, who dread them and race to fill every waking moment out of school pursuing some worthy activity. Exhausting! Happiness - and a genuine interest in pictures of furry animals - gets smothered. Childhood lost.

If she wants, one day, to be a blue stocking then that's fine and we will support her. But look at what I have written - if she wants - that's the important bit.

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Walking The Dog

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