Are You A Soccer Mom or A Dragon Mom? What Is the Real Purpose of Parenthood?

We are all familiar with the ubiquitous term; "Soccer Mom", evoking images of stage mothers intent on their child's successful development. Both mothers and fathers can fall neatly into this category of the stage-parent.  In fact, today's parents seem to have more pressure placed on them, than in preceding generations, to raise super-successful offspring.

Recalling my own childhood, there were no soccer moms or dads. We kids played in the back yard, making mud pies, and building tree forts; riding our bikes or playing a loosely organized game of baseball on the empty corner lot. Basically, we sort of grew up like Tom Sawyer, or Huckleberry Finn. Once our chores and homework were finished, we were left unbridled and unfettered, to explore and utilize our own child's imagination for occupying our time and talents. One kid here or there, had the extra obligation of piano lessons; but even these children were left with many hours of unsupervised playtime, with no overseeing parenting. What loads of fun we all had, and I could fill a novella with the memories.

So what has changed so with today's parents, that more than ever before, those Tom Sawyer's and Huck Finn's of yesteryear, are being reigned in with much more after-school activities, sports, music, dance, gymnastics, all in the hopes of creating a super-developed and successful human being? And who does all this super-child activity really benefit? And what really does define "good parenting"?

So, enter the "Dragon Mom" - what is a Dragon Mom"?  She is the counter to today's "Tiger Mother's", so dubbed by Amy Chua, author of the "Battle of the Tiger Mother", the latest handbook for parents hoping to guide their children along the path of success, with advice for parental investments which will pay off in the form of "happy endings and rich futures".  This must be the world which exists over the rainbow in the Wizard of Oz.  

Dragon Moms parent from a slightly different perspective. The biggest perspective is that there will be no worldly return on their investment. Emily Rapp, author of "Poster Child": A Memoir, and a professor of creative writing at the Santa Fe University of Art and Design, writes an article in the NY Times, about her own Dragon Motherhood of her son Ronan. Ronan has Tay-Sachs disease, a rare genetic disorder. Ronan who is presently 18 months old will likely die before his third birthday; after slowly regressing into a vegetative state, becoming paralyzed, experiencing seizures and losing all of his senses.

Emily's article is a deeply moving account of what parents of disabled and dying children learn to focus on. Children who will not be giving their parents any palpable return on their parenting investment, but instead teach the parents the value of unconditional love. Dragon Parents, in Emily's words are: "fierce and loyal and loving as hell." She goes on to tell how these parents learn the value of parenting for the "here and now"; for the sake of parenting, for the humanity implicit in the act itself, though this runs counter to the traditional wisdom and advice, particularly of today.

Parents of children like Ronan, will not have a future to focus on with their child. There will be no moments of their child's success for the parent to bask in. She tells ALL of parents an "inconvenient truth"; Parents who, particularly in this country, are expected to be superhuman, to raise children who outpace all their peers, don't want to see what these Dragon Parents see .... "that none of it is forever."

There are no expectations of children like Ronan. All hopes and dreams of a future must be abandoned, reducing everything to the simplest priority - Love. Dragon Parents love their children for today ... not for what they will become tomorrow.

My take on all this, is that this priority is one which should be the priority of ALL parents - not just those who have handicapped and dying children, like Ronan, but all of our children. We should ALL be Dragon Parents!  Parents who love our children, first and foremost, for the sake of the child itself.  This is the way that God loves us. Whether or not we can sing and dance, achieve monumental successes, is of no consequence to how much God loves us.  Loving someone is it's own payoff.

This is just one more reason why abortion on demand is so prevalent in today's culture of perfection and super-success. The number of Downs Syndrome children, and other handicapped children like Ronan, being aborted has grown to monumental proportions. Today we read of mother's suing their doctors because the doctor failed to diagnose a child's handicap before it was born, so that the mother could have aborted the imperfect child.

So what is the main reason of parenthood?  The answer to this question will differ depending upon whether you are a person of Faith, or a secular person. For those of us, who are people of Faith, we realize that Life and the engendering of life is a Gift. It does not belong to us ... we did not set the mechanisms of Life into motion. Life, all life belongs to the Creator.  Yet, for some reason of His own, He chose to make us workers in His "Factory of Life".  He created the angels, each from His own hand. Yet, when it came to human beings, He decided to take a different approach. He made the 1st humans, whether you believe it was one man and one woman, or a few more, and then put the rest in our hands. We are not to engage mindlessly or by mere brute instincts in the creative act, but to understand and deeply respect the great mystery which we have been privileged to share in; one which The Cherubim and Seraphim were not invited to share.

Now if you have only a secular view of life and the begetting of life, you will only see it from a botanical approach or one of mere animal husbandry. This will, unfortunately, create an "outcome based" life engendering. Children will not be perceived as gifts from God, but as mere products; for which there will be product control and measured outcomes.  Children like Ronan and all other little angels like him, force parents to take a different look at the whole purpose of their reproductive faculties.  For them, it will no longer be about a perfect product, or a return on an investment .... it will simply be about LOVE ... which is the whole reason God set all of Creation into motion in the first place.

As a small Catholic child, I recall the 1st 2 questions of my Baltimore Catechism: 1.) Who made me?  a. God made me.  2.) Why did God make me? a. God made me because He loves me.