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A riddle: You're friends with two married couples. They have identical socioeconomic status. They're the same age. They have the same education level. They live in the same town. They have a healthy marriage. They have an even temperament.
One couple has two children, ages 11 and 17. The other couple has ten children. Yes, ten (I've seen it happen), ages spanning 18 months to 22 years.
You run into one of them at the store. They are alone. They seem stressed. The conversation is short and mostly centered around how busy they are.
How many children do they have?
We have an instinct compelling us to fix all we can with whatever we see with whatever we have at our disposal. This includes fixing ourselves, and by extension, our problems. But this also includes fixing the people around us, and by extension their problems. Nothing is more emblematic of this than being a parent. For the first several years of their lives, our children would literally die without our undivided dedication to the pursuit of preventing it.
But this need doesn't last forever. In fact, it doesn't even last all that long, all things considered. As soon as a child becomes sentient, presumably, they could be taught the skills needed to feed themselves if no one were around to do it for them. If I wanted to be more precise, I could Google something like "average age for a child to choose to feed itself over starving to death", but I don't want any uniformed strangers ringing my doorbell.
Regardless, the instinct to nurture is so strong, that provision eventually becomes enablement if it doesn't taper off as they mature, robbing the child of a chance to develop the skills necessary to survive and thrive in the adult world. This is evident in certain adults we meet, who seem somehow dysfunctional when compared to a reasonable expectation of how the average, well-adjusted adult should act. They may be this way for any number of reasons, but there's a telltale combination of helplessness and entitlement specific to this malady that makes it easy to spot. In most cases, this doesn't concern us since we can choose to leave weird strangers to their own devices. But in the case of friends, loved ones, friends of friends, coworkers, regrettably un-ignorable acquaintances, and, most acutely, our children, the risk of dipping into our fix-the-problem instincts is high.
The good mother necessarily fails.
Sigmund Freud
Of course, we want to help. Of course, we want to be supportive. Of course, we want to show generosity, guidance, and kindness. And we do. But no human voluntarily chooses the resistant path. So when we blaze someone else's trail for them, they have no idea they're missing out on practicing important life skills. They'll simply walk the path we cleared for them. We need to "fail" to do everything for them, lest they become completely useless as adults.
Which brings us back to the riddle. When children are young, we have no choice. We must guide them. But as they grow, we have to start judging if, when, and how we begin to step aside. It's counterintuitive, but the more kids we have, the easier it is to soften our attention on every detail. There's no way the couple with ten children can keep tabs on what everyone is doing at all times. This effectively removes the burden of even attempting it. Failing to prevent their children from stumbling is inevitable, but it facilitates their natural ability to grow and learn, allowing them to develop the skills necessary to solve their own problems. Also, with many siblings of varying ages around, this couple can draw comfort from knowing someone will bear witness if there's a real emergency. So your stressed out friend probably clinging too tightly to the idea that they have to be the be-all, end-all, and everything-in-between to their lovely two children.
Ultimately, whether we have ten children or two, we can reap the benefits of what organically emerges out of necessity by dropping the illusion of keeping them from all harm. We can let them get dirty and we don't have to clean them up ourselves. If we simply teach them how to clean, we can step back and watch 'em grow.