If you’re a parent of small children, just how many foam, plastic or rubber contraptions do you have around your home? You know, the ones that serve no other purpose but to protect your children from harm?

I have thirty-three. Thirty-three apparatuses that keep my children out of cabinets, keep their fingers out of electric sockets and keep them out of rooms full of “no-nos”. It sounds like a lot, but I promise, it’s really not. I have far fewer than most parents I know. I even have less than my own parents who used to use a 15-year-old car seat for the grandkids (Sorry for throwing you under the bus, Mom and Dad).

Even after the insistence of family members, we refused to get the foam bumpers for our brick fireplace, the drawer catch levers, the whale that covers the bathtub faucet and so many others. We even opted out of the sun shade for the car.

Why? Because we felt like our kids should get accustomed to the world rather than bending the world to accommodate them.

The world is full of helicopter parents. They’re the ones I talked about on the playground who follow their kids around and show them how to navigate every single piece of equipment. They’re also the ones who leave in the middle of a lunch date because “Holy God, it’s almost nap time and we have to get home NOW!” They change every element of their world to fit their children rather than raising their children to fit into the world.

It’s not a good look and it has some awful consequences.

I saw this on my Facebook news feed last week. A friend of mine is an academic advisor at a large college. She deals with all kinds of these types of situations, but she shared this particularly funny email from a student last week:

Student: I have a question about my enrollment. I’m about to enroll in (Class A) and (Class B), but the first one starts at 11:00 AM and ends at 11:50 AM, and the second one starts at 12:00 PM and ends at 12:50 PM. That means I`ll have no time to lunch every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Isn’t there anything we can do about that? Please, answer me as soon as possible. I’m sorry to bother you.

I read this and went “WHA?” Who in their right mind would send this email? Why in the world would this be my friend’s problem to solve? And then I realized this email was probably from a kid of a parent who bent over backward to ensure their child never experienced a single inconvenience.

Life has pains. It has inconveniences, hurts, unfortunate circumstances, and heartache. If we, as parents shelter our kids from these things while they’re young, how in the world are they going to function when we aren’t around later? How are they going to know how to pick themselves up, brush themselves off and move on? How in God’s name are they going to know when to eat lunch?!

It is our job to teach them. It is our job to give them the tools they need to live their life. Not to do it for them. Not to put up bumpers everywhere they turn so they don’t bump their head. Sometimes a bump on the head is what will keep them from running into another disaster. Sometimes they need to learn to accommodate others’ needs before their own just so they don’t suck as people later.

Yes, it hurts a lot to see your child hurting. It kills me when one of my girls cries. But sometimes the best lesson they learn is to fall down. They’ll get back up and they’ll thank you for it later (at least that’s the rainbow and sunshine picture I have in my head).

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