This reminds me of an ex friend of mine. This guy grew up in what many would call a good environment, his father was kind of absent in his life but his mom was super doting and over-committed to him to compensate at the expense of never having her own life and always putting him first. She was trying to be a good mother to her only child but what, she actually accomplished was spoiling him into becoming an absolute sociopath with no regard for the feelings of others. After all, he had been led to believe the world really did revolve around him. So he turned out to be a real jerk—manipulative, codependent and kind of evil all around. Nobody talks to him anymore because of all the times he’s screwed his friends over and otherwise betrayed our trust to further his agenda.
He never learned the meaning of the word “no” because he was so used to getting his way all the time as a kid, teenager, and into his early adulthood. He wanted to go to Europe? She paid for it. He wanted a new car? She took a loan to finance it. He wanted to go to Europe again and fail out of community college at the same time? She let him go using what should have been his tuition money to fund it. (AKA HER hard-earned money wasted so he could do what he wanted and pretty much be rewarded for getting kicked out of school) The list really goes on and on, but you get the idea.
Now, despite having every opportunity handed to him, he’s a now an obese McDonald’s manager/community college dropout who still sleeps with his childhood blankie (no joke) and spends most of his time smoking pot and impersonating women so he can troll for dudes on the internet. Regardless, his delusional Mom still fawns over what a “good boy” and how “successful” he is despite him so clearly being the opposite.
See the pattern?
I had another friend as a child and teen who was similar as well. Her mother was also a single Mom and felt unnecessarily guilty for and tried to make up for it by spoiling her rotten. The outcome? She was also a jerk and lost all of her friends. Nobody knows what happened to her but we assume it isn’t good. She had the “perfect” (albeit delusional) mom and still turned out to be a rotten biatch.
The lesson I take from this is that “perfect parenting” is definitely not about spoiling your kids and handing every thing to them. Doing so can be just as damaging as abuse and really breed some real pieces of work. I recently read some articles about how French moms raise their kids and while I do think it oversimplifies I also think it raises some good points. American society is so child-centric that women are expected to give everything up for their kids at the expense of their own sanity and this doesn’t necessarily do the child any favors and certainly doesn’t help them be well-adjusted adults.
So perhaps the the typical American “ideal” of a parent isn’t so ideal after all… And I think many people (especially us women) tend to confuse providing an “ideal environment” with being at the constant service of your bratlings This is something I’ll certainly be thinking about before I have kids.