In her recent New York Times article, Kindergarten Cram, Peggy Orenstein says this:

“Jean Piaget famously referred to “the American question,” which arose when he lectured in this country: how, his audiences wanted to know, could a child’s development be sped up? The better question may be: Why are we so hellbent on doing so?”

I second the question.

Ms. Orenstein described searching for the right kindergarten for her daughter, and being disappointed that the vast majority of them assigned nightly homework to 5- and 6-year olds. Eventually found the right fit; she chose a school that doesn’t assign homework until the 4^th grade. Still early, she feels, but it’s better than kindergarten.

I have to agree. As a parent, I am a strong believer in a solid education. Our kids should understand our country’s history and it’s place in world history. They should have a solid grasp of mathematical concepts and know the difference between a noun and a verb. If they can also learn not to turn nouns INTO verbs, I’d love it, but that might be asking a bit much these days, when words like ‘journaling’ are acceptable parts of the vernacular. So, noun vs. verb, I’ll take it.

But I’m also a strong believer in letting kids be kids. I’m a proponent of downtime and family time and not keeping up with Joneses, who are probably up to their eyeballs in debt anyway. There’s an upside, I think, to kids being bored and unscheduled some of the time. Give creativity a chance—kids come up with all sorts of interesting things to do when “there’s nothing to do.”

It also seems to me that this desire to get ahead, to teach our 4-year olds to read and multiply, is directly related to another article I read in the in the NY Times. Two years ago, in For Girls, It’s Be Yourself, and Be Perfect, Too, Sara Rimer discussed the excruciatingly high expectations girls face today. It pained me to read it. If you haven’t read it already, you should. All parents should, because although this article specifically focuses on the pressures for girls, many of them apply to boys as well.

In myriad ways, we are pushing our kids to learn more, be more, do more sooner. Faster. Better.

And why?

It’s a complicated question with complicated answers. We’re all driven by different experiences and desires that influence our parenting. I think it’s a question we should stop to ask ourselves. And then we should be brave enough to let our kids be kids even when their peers are light years ahead, in more ways than one.

And I’m hanging onto the hope that when they’re older, much older, they’ll thank us.

What do you think?