Don't be a Cowardly Alpha

By Bill Zahren
(Posted 11/02/02)

Behold the suburban alpha male and female. Lounging in their $140,000 three-bedroom, four-bathroom houses situated on wide streets with three names. Morning Dew Vista. Apple Blossom Drive.

We alphas survey our suburban Serengeti from the comfort of Land’s End deck chairs. 2.3 kids. Minivan/SUV. "Career path." Large-breed dog. Firm grasp of soccer’s offside rule. Striking.

Life is so good that the suburban alphas no longer worry about our own survival. We’re well insured. We get the finest medical care. Cash flows like a river from our employers, through our bank accounts and into the local economy.

What does worry the alphas are the kids. Life’s hyenas shadow them at every turn. Drugs. Guns. Mental and physical violence. Sex. "The wrong crowd." Moral ambivalence. Peer pressure. Underachievement.

Forget the glamorous image of the alpha lying in the sun, being pampered by the rest of the pack. True alphas know instinctively their first duty: protect the pack. In nature, when the group is threatened the alpha individuals charge boldly out to meet the challenges. Even vastly outnumbered, they'll fight to the death to defend the pack.

Which explains why some parents hover over their children, wrapping their wings around them mother bird-like, shielding the precious gifts from all threats and discomforts, real or imagined. Suburban alphas enter battle not with teeth barred and musculatures taunt, but with attorneys in tow, personal contacts on speed dial and formidable spending power at the ready.

But unlike alphas in the wild, parents aren't usually physically present when their kids are the most at risk. It’s what kids do with other kids, away from our protective gaze, that scares us silly. So what’s an alpha to do?

As a concerned alpha male who has a recurring nightmare of his daughters in orange county jail jumpsuits, I've been doing what we do out here in the 'burbs -- attending a parenting class.

Every Tuesday night about 25 of us drive our SUVs to my daughters' tony elementary school to take the Parenting with Love and Logic class to help us keep our kids out of the juvenile justice system. To indicate our serious about learning this stuff wetake the extreme step of turning off our cell phones during class.

Now the Parenting with Love and Logic people and Michael Josephson’s Character Counts program both say beating or shielding the kids are both bad ideas. They propose that the best way to defend your children is to teach them to defend themselves. And that means letting life's lesser hyenas bite your kids in the butt now and then.

Of course we’re not talking about letting children suffer lethal consequences. Letting kids get hit by cars may teach them not to wander into traffic, but the price of the lesson is a bit steep. But the wise parent can easily distinguish what will kill our children from what will make them stronger.

So when your kid gets caught cheating on school exams -- caught dead to rights with an arm covered in ink-penned answers -- resist the extreme urge to rush to his or her defense.

Oh the kids will make it tough by calling desperately for help. They’ll say "the teacher has it in for me" and "everybody does it" and "I wrote it on my arm but I never looked at it" and "if you had helped me study I wouldn’t have had to cheat" and "if I fail this class, I won’t get an academic scholarship."

The cowardly alpha will cave and rush the kids' rescue. Be brave. Take the advice of about a billion parenting experts: have the courage to just sit on your alpha haunches and let your kid learn the law of the adult jungle -- you are responsible for your choices.

The courageous alpha knows experience is the best teacher. Better to have your offspring experience the consequences of bad choices as children (when the price is relatively low) than to postpone the lesson until later in life when the stakes are much, much higher.

Life is about making choices. As the alphas of our family pack, we best protect kids by giving them practice in making choices and living with the resulting positive or negative consequences.

So keep your credit cards in your pocket. Holster the cellular Batphone to your attorney. Admit to yourself that the youngsters screwed up, grit your teeth and let life knock them around a little, while the punches are still relatively soft.

Oh yeah, you're going to have to be there for them, physically. Can't ask the principal to conference you in on the speakerphone. Can't discuss the situation with your kid via e-mail. Gonna have to turn off the personal data asistant, cell phone and pager. Y

ou may even have to take the extreme step of leaving the office before 7 p.m. And you may only work 50 hours one week.

Hey, it's not easy being the alpha.

© 2002 Bill Zahren

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