Every mother and father has two main tasks, and they contradict one another.
The first is to protect the children. The second is to abandon them.
Yes, I said abandon. I could have written release, but then the sentence would have had less emotional impact.
From the moment the child emerges, we are supposed to be preparing him for the moments when we will not be beside him.
We are supposed to embrace, but also to drill. To stroke, but also to challenge.
Because from adolescence onwards, this child will stand before the most dangerous challenge of his life: the need to make decisions by himself.
And he is going to get them wrong. An extraordinary number of stupid errors of judgement lie ahead of him.
Associate with that group of boys or not? Answer the teacher back or let it go? Shorten the route home through the dark street or wait for the bus? Another drink or stop?
A thousand decisions. Countless decisions.
And it is very much worth our while to let him make certain measured decisions within the domestic and neighbourhood space — and even more worth our while to open our large mouths and give him feedback, including negative feedback, on the quality of those decisions.
Because when he goes out, a few years from now, and has a wallet, or a partner, or a car, nothing in the world will protect him.
Only his own judgement.
Which is the whole argument, and it is why over-protection is not merely excessive care. Judgement is a skill, it is built exclusively by exercising it under real stakes, and a childhood engineered to have no real stakes produces an eighteen-year-old with a driving licence and no practice.