Skip to content
  • About
  • Contact
  • Contribute
  • Book
  • Careers
  • Podcast
  • Recommended
  • Speaking
  • All
  • Physician
  • Practice
  • Policy
  • Finance
  • Conditions
  • .edu
  • Patient
  • Meds
  • Tech
  • Social
  • Video
    • All
    • Physician
    • Practice
    • Policy
    • Finance
    • Conditions
    • .edu
    • Patient
    • Meds
    • Tech
    • Social
    • Video
    • About
    • Contact
    • Contribute
    • Book
    • Careers
    • Podcast
    • Recommended
    • Speaking

Sometimes being a good parent means doing less, not more

Claire McCarthy, MD
Physician
January 23, 2014
Share
Tweet
Share

For many of my out-of-school hours as a child, no adult had any idea what I was doing.

This has everything to do with who I am today, in some remarkably good ways.

As a parent, I can’t help but wince at the lack of supervision I received, especially given what my friends and I did. We spent hours in really tall fir trees, pretending they were houses. I lived on Long Island Sound, and we swam at beaches without a grownup in sight, let alone a lifeguard. Even when my dad did come along, he read books while I dove underwater. (He may have glanced up occasionally, but every time I came up for air his eyes were on a book). We played at an abandoned, falling-apart amphitheater in the woods. We skated on a (mostly) frozen salt marsh.

I didn’t tell my parents where I was going when I left the house, except maybe to tell them my starting point. (“I’m going to Patty’s house.”)  I would be gone for hours, coming home at mealtime. Obviously, I didn’t have a cell phone. I would have been essentially impossible to find.

Fast forward to me as a parent: my children have been provided cell phones by middle school. I have grounded them for changing plans and not telling me — not because they did anything dangerous, but simply because they went somewhere and I didn’t know. And this is when they were tweens and teens. I was climbing through the rocks and marsh of the estuary at the bottom of our street before I was 10 years old — sometimes with my little sister in tow. The only time I got in trouble was when my sister lost one of her shoes in the deep leaves along the steep narrow path to the water.

There were times when I felt very alone as a child, and this probably has a lot to do with why I do things differently as a parent.  I was actually sad when nobody yelled at me when I came home scraped and covered with sap on the day we climbed too high in the tree and the branches didn’t hold us well. It was scary the day I misjudged the tide when I took the estuary route home from the town beach, and had to climb up a cement wall, find my way through a boatyard, climb over a fence and trespass through someone’s yard to get to the road. There were lots of moments when I wished someone were there to help me.

But because there wasn’t, I learned resourcefulness. I learned self-reliance. I learned that if I stayed calm and used my head, I could find my way through just about anything. These are lessons I carry with me to this day — and that have served me very well.

They are lessons that I don’t think our youth today are learning.  In our quest to keep them safe and make them feel loved and supported, we are keeping them from learning resourcefulness and self-reliance and other skills they need to get themselves out of scrapes — because you can only really learn them through experience.

Even knowing this, it’s hard to think about changing how I do things as a parent. There is nothing more precious to me in this world than my children. There is nothing that matters more to me than keeping them safe and well; I would be devastated if anything happened to one of them, especially if it were something I could have prevented.

Somehow, as parents and a society, we have to find the middle ground. We need to be loving, supportive, involved and aware of what our children are doing. But at the same time, we have to teach them about safety and teach them some concrete skills (like how to swim, climb, use tools, identify helping adults or think through a tough situation) to keep themselves safe when we can’t be there. And then, we need to take a deep breath, tell them we love them and let them go out into the world without us.  And if they call us and ask us what to do, we need to take another deep breath and say: you can do this. Give it a try.

It’s one of the many paradoxes of parenting: sometimes being a good parent means doing less, not more.

Claire McCarthy is a primary care physician and the medical director of Boston Children’s Hospital’s Martha Eliot Health Center.  She blogs at Thriving, the Boston Children’s Hospital blog, Vector, the Boston Children’s Hospital science and clinical innovation blog.

Prev

A new respect for norovirus

January 23, 2014 Kevin 0
…
Next

After a medical mistake: Honesty is the best policy

January 23, 2014 Kevin 9
…

ADVERTISEMENT

Tagged as: Pediatrics

Post navigation

< Previous Post
A new respect for norovirus
Next Post >
After a medical mistake: Honesty is the best policy

ADVERTISEMENT

ADVERTISEMENT

ADVERTISEMENT

More by Claire McCarthy, MD

  • Sometimes, talking to strangers is necessary

    Claire McCarthy, MD
  • Maybe God made teenagers difficult so we can let them go

    Claire McCarthy, MD
  • 4 mistakes parents make in the pediatrician’s office

    Claire McCarthy, MD

More in Physician

  • Ethical dilemmas in using unclaimed bodies for medical research

    M. Bennet Broner, PhD
  • The Nova Oath: a physician’s pledge to courageous and ethical care

    Kenneth Ro, MD
  • True stories of doctors reclaiming their humanity in a system that challenges it

    Alae Kawam, DO & Kim Downey, PT & Nicole Solomos, DO
  • Why wanting more from your medical career is a sign of strength

    Maureen Gibbons, MD
  • How a rainy walk helped an oncologist rediscover joy and bravery

    Dr. Damane Zehra
  • How inspiration and family stories shape our most meaningful moments

    Arthur Lazarus, MD, MBA
  • Most Popular

  • Past Week

    • When did we start treating our lives like trauma?

      Maureen Gibbons, MD | Physician
    • Why removing fluoride from water is a public health disaster

      Steven J. Katz, DDS | Conditions
    • How to speak the language of leadership to improve doctor wellness [PODCAST]

      The Podcast by KevinMD | Podcast
    • Why some doctors age gracefully—and others grow bitter

      Patrick Hudson, MD | Physician
    • How to survive a broken health care system without losing yourself [PODCAST]

      The Podcast by KevinMD | Podcast
    • How the shingles vaccine could help prevent dementia

      Marc Arginteanu, MD | Conditions
  • Past 6 Months

    • Why tracking cognitive load could save doctors and patients

      Hiba Fatima Hamid | Education
    • What the world must learn from the life and death of Hind Rajab

      Saba Qaiser, RN | Conditions
    • The silent toll of ICE raids on U.S. patient care

      Carlin Lockwood | Policy
    • Addressing the physician shortage: How AI can help, not replace

      Amelia Mercado | Tech
    • Why medical students are trading empathy for publications

      Vijay Rajput, MD | Education
    • Physician patriots: the forgotten founders who lit the torch of liberty

      Muhamad Aly Rifai, MD | Physician
  • Recent Posts

    • How to speak the language of leadership to improve doctor wellness [PODCAST]

      The Podcast by KevinMD | Podcast
    • Ethical dilemmas in using unclaimed bodies for medical research

      M. Bennet Broner, PhD | Physician
    • The Nova Oath: a physician’s pledge to courageous and ethical care

      Kenneth Ro, MD | Physician
    • AI is not a threat to radiologists. It’s a distraction from what truly matters in medicine.

      Fardad Behzadi, MD | Tech
    • How deep transcranial magnetic stimulation is transforming mental health care

      Muhamad Aly Rifai, MD | Conditions
    • True stories of doctors reclaiming their humanity in a system that challenges it

      Alae Kawam, DO & Kim Downey, PT & Nicole Solomos, DO | Physician

Subscribe to KevinMD and never miss a story!

Get free updates delivered free to your inbox.


Find jobs at
Careers by KevinMD.com

Search thousands of physician, PA, NP, and CRNA jobs now.

Learn more

View 5 Comments >

Founded in 2004 by Kevin Pho, MD, KevinMD.com is the web’s leading platform where physicians, advanced practitioners, nurses, medical students, and patients share their insight and tell their stories.

Social

  • Like on Facebook
  • Follow on Twitter
  • Connect on Linkedin
  • Subscribe on Youtube
  • Instagram

ADVERTISEMENT

ADVERTISEMENT

ADVERTISEMENT

ADVERTISEMENT

  • Most Popular

  • Past Week

    • When did we start treating our lives like trauma?

      Maureen Gibbons, MD | Physician
    • Why removing fluoride from water is a public health disaster

      Steven J. Katz, DDS | Conditions
    • How to speak the language of leadership to improve doctor wellness [PODCAST]

      The Podcast by KevinMD | Podcast
    • Why some doctors age gracefully—and others grow bitter

      Patrick Hudson, MD | Physician
    • How to survive a broken health care system without losing yourself [PODCAST]

      The Podcast by KevinMD | Podcast
    • How the shingles vaccine could help prevent dementia

      Marc Arginteanu, MD | Conditions
  • Past 6 Months

    • Why tracking cognitive load could save doctors and patients

      Hiba Fatima Hamid | Education
    • What the world must learn from the life and death of Hind Rajab

      Saba Qaiser, RN | Conditions
    • The silent toll of ICE raids on U.S. patient care

      Carlin Lockwood | Policy
    • Addressing the physician shortage: How AI can help, not replace

      Amelia Mercado | Tech
    • Why medical students are trading empathy for publications

      Vijay Rajput, MD | Education
    • Physician patriots: the forgotten founders who lit the torch of liberty

      Muhamad Aly Rifai, MD | Physician
  • Recent Posts

    • How to speak the language of leadership to improve doctor wellness [PODCAST]

      The Podcast by KevinMD | Podcast
    • Ethical dilemmas in using unclaimed bodies for medical research

      M. Bennet Broner, PhD | Physician
    • The Nova Oath: a physician’s pledge to courageous and ethical care

      Kenneth Ro, MD | Physician
    • AI is not a threat to radiologists. It’s a distraction from what truly matters in medicine.

      Fardad Behzadi, MD | Tech
    • How deep transcranial magnetic stimulation is transforming mental health care

      Muhamad Aly Rifai, MD | Conditions
    • True stories of doctors reclaiming their humanity in a system that challenges it

      Alae Kawam, DO & Kim Downey, PT & Nicole Solomos, DO | Physician

MedPage Today Professional

An Everyday Health Property Medpage Today
  • Terms of Use | Disclaimer
  • Privacy Policy
  • DMCA Policy
All Content © KevinMD, LLC
Site by Outthink Group

Sometimes being a good parent means doing less, not more
5 comments

Comments are moderated before they are published. Please read the comment policy.

Loading Comments...