American children are miserable, and so are their parents. We’re overscheduled, anxious, and way, way too focused on academic achievement and college readiness.
Here’s my modest proposal to fix it: Do it yourself. No, I don’t mean pureeing your own baby food, or sewing your own cloth diapers, or crafting your own educational and stimulating playthings out of natural materials.
Instead, next time you get the urge to sign your kid up for something you think will improve them—music lessons, sports, cotillion, a service trip to Honduras—just do it yourself instead. Learn to play the cello—or pick up your guitar again. Spend your Wednesday evenings playing rec softball with friends. Book a hiking vacation.
Who knows? Maybe your kids will be so inspired by your passion that they’ll start begging for music lessons or practicing basketball in the driveway for hours every afternoon, all without you nagging them. Or maybe they’ll just enjoy having a few unstructured hours every week poking sticks into the grass or watching clouds float by or drawing pictures or talking to their friends. Either way, they’ll see that life can have many pleasures, both social and solitary, that their identity doesn’t need to be fully formed at age eighteen, that learning and playing can be lifelong and self-directed and joyful. And so will you.