[NovaJehovah]

> the "wellbeing of your child" is not really a question

Mental health, substance abuse, and suicide statistics, including among the middle and upper classes, would seem to strongly indicate otherwise.

> It's possible you meant to make a more sympathetic point, but my first impression is that the comment espouses an actively harmful idea about the relation between parent and a child.

So "try hard, make sacrifices, and do your best" is now considered problematic? The relativism in this mindset is absurd. Nobody here would claim that there's no right or wrong way to design a distributed system, or that there are no right or wrong ideas about religion, but we have to pretend it's the case with parenting so we don't hurt anyone's feelings?

[bihla]

Children are not clay to be molded, and they are not computer systems to be planned and carried out. They are individuals. And there are no clear solutions to mental health, substance abuse, or suicide--but there are clear non-solutions like helicopter parenting.

EDIT: And best-efforts at laying out everything for your kid are more than potentially-wasted energy. It's smothering, controlling behavior of someone who should have the right to live and make their own choices and mistakes.

[NovaJehovah]

"Helicopter parenting" and "smothering" are not the only alternatives to self-serving, self-absorbed neglect.

Throwing your hands up because something is hard and there are no obvious answers is not a recipe for doing a good job at... anything.

[bihla]

I guess I see fewer under-concerned parents than I do over-concerned parents. Of course there are both.

[NovaJehovah]

I most often see that kind of thing from parents who are trying to compensate for failing to be present in more fundamental ways.

[Talanes]

Some of the most troubled people I've known had very involved parents.