I had an opportunity to observe an overprotective parent in
action the other day. I was supposed to
meet up with some friends, but when I arrived at their house, only their dad
was home. He was upset that they had not
cleaned the house, and so he grumbled to me how his kids were terrible, and how
he just wanted to kick them out. Fifteen
minutes later, his son arrived back home.
He had checked the mail, and was in the process of opening a letter when
he walked through the door. It was a
college acceptance letter for a college in the next state. He told his dad the good news, and his dad
replied by saying that it wasn’t a good idea for him to move so far away because
life would be difficult for him. It
appears that dad’s lament of fifteen minutes earlier had been forgotten in the
prospect of his son leaving him voluntarily.
At any rate, it struck at that moment in time just how
horrific the pathology of overprotectiveness truly is. It starts when parents coddle their
children. They seek to protect from all
the ills of life, whether that be injury, risk, or deprivation. Quite simply, overprotective parents actively
prevent their children from engaging in behaviors that could have negative
outcomes, like exploring nature, or working hard, or occasionally even doing
chores. Their children know neither risk
nor responsibility, and grow up soft and unfocused. This, of course, makes their children
ill-equipped for functioning as adults in society, because their children
simply have no idea to be adults, thanks to overprotective parents. Weirdly, though, the parents do not like
their children because their children remain dependent on them even after their
children are well into the chronological age of maturity. Unfortunately for the parents, this is a hell
of their own making. Instead of raising
their children to eventually become independent, they raise their children to
rely on them as crutches.
In a broader sense, the nanny state is the same way. Those who rule see people who are oppressed
and downtrodden, and attempt to help them.
Unfortunately, this desire to help is quite addictive, and so the state
can never reduce or cut back on the help it offers; it must, instead,
perpetually grow. In so doing, the state
encourages people to rely on it for help.
These people become dependent, weak, and lazy. The rulers, though, become disgusted with the
very people they tried to protect. They
view them as lazy parasites, incapable of taking care of themselves, and wholly
reliant on the state for help. Oftentimes,
they are correct. But this dependence is
disgusting because it is unnatural. The people who received state funds are
viewed with contempt, and looked down upon, as if they are puppies to take care
because they are so weak and helpless on their own.
Ultimately, this overprotectiveness is a corruption of
love. There is a natural desire to help
others, to do what’s best for others, to act in the best interest of one’s children. However, this natural desire is untrained and
often imprecise, and may even lack foresight.
Thus, say, a parent may genuinely desire to do what’s right for his
children, but is otherwise incapable of actually doing so because he relies on
his untrained emotions and is otherwise incapable of seeing how his desire to
make his kids happy in the short-term will lead to him hating them later. He
feels, but he does not think. His emotion
is unmoderated by contemplation, and so his actions and words are like his
feelings: inconsistent, dynamic, and
subject to change without notice. And,
that is why, on the one hand, a man can curse his children for being lazy and
then, not even a quarter of an hour later, send his son on a guilt trip for the
crime of considering the possibility of moving to a different state.
The overprotective agent, whether that is a parent or a
state, is one who unwittingly creates a monster and then is disgusted when
confronted by it. The overprotective parent
is too consumed with his own perspective and concerns to realize the damage
that is done until it is too late. Like
a manic-depressive, then, the overprotective parent flits increasingly faster
back-and-forth between the extremes of revulsion and pity, and acts accordingly
depending on how he feels at the time. As
time goes on, it becomes increasingly obvious that the parent must let the
child go free; however, as time goes on, it becomes harder and harder for the parent
to actually do so.
First, they make you dependent and weak. Then, they hate you for being dependent and
weak. Next, they protect you for being
dependent and weak, which makes you even more dependent and weak, which they hate
you for even more, and so on ad infinitum. And thus is the pathology of overprotectiveness.
