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The Art of Letting Go

Thank you, Nancy Gibbs, for making some sense when it comes to parenting [Nov. 30]. I have a 3-year-old girl and a boy on the way, and the barrage of what not to do is daunting. (Don't eat deli meat! Don't color your hair! Don't even look at wine!) Love your kids like mad, provide boundaries, be consistent, listen and laugh and occasionally let them be. I worry that in parents' desire to be the best parents, they forget it is also supposed to be fun. I worry more that we are creating narcissistic kids who believe the world orbits around their every whim.

Heather Hach Hearne, LOS ANGELES

I'm 87 years old, and when I was a child, men worked, women kept house and we children were left to our own devices. We built kites from sticks, newspapers and string; scooters from a piece of 2-by-4 and old roller-skate wheels; stilts from leftover lumber. We played hide-and-seek, Come My Good Sheep, Red Rover, marbles and jacks. We played football and baseball with our own rules and changed them if we wanted to. And what happened to us? We grew up to be the Greatest Generation!

Harold Duket, OCONOMOWOC, WIS.

Much of what Gibbs is talking about is bull, plain and simple. A parent can't be too careful. This is not the '50s, when you could leave your door open at night to help cool the house. Sad, but true nonetheless.

James Schriver, JACKSONVILLE, FLA.

Gibbs suggests that overparenting is due to our obsession with kids' achievement, but there is another explanation. When I was growing up in the 1980s, many mothers entered the workforce full time; the trend was an economic boon, but it also created problems. For hours after school, kids languished at home alone or entered overcrowded programs. Unlike earlier generations, parents now tend to have fewer kids and more modern conveniences. We have the freedom to rebel against the '80s era and be more involved. Overparenting may be on the decline partly because of economics and not strictly a philosophical backlash.

Lodi Lipien, TAMPA, FLA.

Kudos and thank you from a mom who has let her children bike to the convenience store, walk along a country road to find a lost phone, figure out public transit to a city high school and study and volunteer abroad. I'm still not ready to hear what they did when we weren't looking ... but I do know there are no perfect kids or perfect parents. Every day you say a little prayer.

Karen Campbell, MALVERN, PA.

DISSENT OF THE WEEK

While your story was well written and researched, it pretty much overlooked all but rich, suburban whites. What world is the writer living in? Certainly not the inner New York City one in which I teach college--the real, food-insecure world that represents the 21st century American experience for many of us. Most working parents I know are too busy trying to put food on the table to have time for "overparenting."

Henry Bentsen, STATEN ISLAND, N.Y.

A major reason parents overschedule kids is to pull them away from mind-numbing electronic devices. Also, shame on you for underplaying how members of the media fuel parental protectiveness. It would be much easier to loosen the grip if the media stopped preying on parents' worst fears.