Are You Turning Your Child Into a Wimp? ①

They are the products of parental anxiety and all the lumps and bumps have been taken out of life for them, so they have no idea how to manage the normal vicissitudes of life.
75. Are You Turning Your Child Into a Wimp?
By Andrea Sachs Monday, TIME Jun. 23, 2008

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Are American parents smothering their children? Hara Estroff Marano, an editor-at-large at Psychology Today magazine and the grandmother of three small children, is convinced that they are. In her provocative new book, A Nation of Wimps: The High Cost of Invasive Parenting (Broadway), she writes, 'Behold the wholly sanitized childhood, without skinned knees or the occasional C in history! Kids need to learn that you need to feel bad sometimes. We learn through experience, and we learn especially through bad experiences. Through disappointment and failure we learn how to cope.' TIME senior reporter Andrea Sachs spoke with Marano:

TIME: How did you become interested in this subject?
HARA ESTROFF MARANO: I had done intensive reporting on what I call the crisis on the campus. Why were college kids breaking down now in record numbers? Genetically they're not different. My kids had gone to college not long before. This was not a problem when they went to school. So I began looking at why, and I began talking to everyone on the front lines. There were hundreds and hundreds of people who were treating these kids, and they all said the same thing: these kids lack coping skills because they've not been allowed to fully function. They are the products of parental anxiety and all the lumps and bumps have been taken out of life for them, so they have no idea how to manage the normal vicissitudes of life.

A. 어휘
wimp 무기력한 사람, 적극성이 없는 사람. smother 질식시키다.
editor-at-large 無任所(무임소) 편집인. magazine 잡지.
provocative 挑發的(도발적)인, 자극적인. high cost 고비용. invasive 침략적인.
parenting 育兒(육아), 양육. behold 보다, 주시하다.
wholly sanitized 완전히 위생처리 된. skinned 껍질이 벗겨진. knee 무릎.
occasional 가끔의, 때때로의. C in history 역사과목에서 C학점.
disappointment 실망. cope 대처하다, 대항하다. senior reporter 선임기자.
subject 주제. intensive reporting 집중보도. crisis 위기.
break down 쇠약해지다, 떨어져 부서지다. in record numbers 기록적인 숫자로.
genetically 유전적으로. on the front lines 一線(일선)에 있는, 現場(현장)에 있는.
coping skills 대처(대항)하는 기술. function 기능을 다하다. product 産物(산물).
anxiety 걱정. lump 덩어리, 혹, 얼간이. bump 충돌. have no idea 모르다.
vicissitude 榮枯盛衰(영고성쇠), 浮沈(부침), 변천.

B. 구문
- They are the products of parental. . . out of life for them.
[그들은 걱정 많은(과보호하는) 부모들의 산물이고 그들의 삶에서 장애물은 모두 제거되어 버렸었다.]

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Why has that occurred?
The world has changed on our watch. I didn't grow up knowing how to use a computer. So that instrument alone is highly symbolic that the world has changed. It's very fast, very dynamic, very fluid. A kid in Bangalore can come up with a program that could make Microsoft obsolete in two years. This is scary. This makes for great uncertainty. So what we're really worried about is the success of our kids. That's why we push them to achieve. And that's why we're focused on the Harvard, Yale, Princeton brand-name education. In a world of uncertainty, a brand name carries some cachet and it's the closest thing you can get to a guarantee of some kind of success or achievement.

You consider medicating kids with drugs like Ritalin over-parenting.
Parents go out of their way to have their kids de-clared defective so that they can get the drug and so that they can also have 'accommodations.' This is a big deal. It has been going on for five or seven years now. Parents go out of their way and spend fortunes. Neuropsychologists do the testing. It's a huge business. 'Accommodations' is not an informal word. It's a formal thing that schools do. Almost all of the accommodations are centered around prolonging the test time the kids have. It's no longer something that gets marked on your record. So colleges don't know if you had twice the time to take your SATs. That's why parents find it so highly desirable. But in the course of doing it, they have their kids tested to find some little quirk, some little vulnerability. And that's a measure of parental anxiety. And the parental anxiety is willing to put a negative label on kids. That's really something very new. You don't boast your strengths. You boast your weaknesses.

A. 어휘
on our watch 우리 눈앞에서. instrument 도구, 機具(기구). fluid 유동적인.
Bangalore 인도남부에 있는 IT 산업중심도시.
come up with 산출하다, 공급하다, 제안하다.
obsolete 舊式(구식)의, 사라진, 退行(퇴행)한. scary 겁나는, 무서운.
make for 助長(조장)하다. uncertainty 불안정, 불확실. worry about 안달하다, 속타다.
cachet 공식 인가도장(인가증). get to 도달하다. guarantee 保證(보증).
medicate 약을 먹이다, 투약하다.
Ritalin 과잉행동증후군 아이들을 위한 주의집중용 약.
Ritalin over-parenting 리타린 투약을 통해 주의력을 향상시켜서 학습태도를 고치려는 부모들의 양육방법. go out of one's way 일부러 ...하다. de-clare 선언하다.
defective 결함이 있는. accommodations 숙박시설, 좌석, 적응(본문에서는 가짜 환자가 되어 약을 복용하는 행위). neuropsychologist 신경심리학자. testing 평가.
informal 비공식적인. prolong 연장하다.
SAT→Scholasic Aptitude Test(대학 진학 적성 시험).
quirk 버릇, 奇行(기행), 발뺌, 핑계. vulnerability 취약성, 상처받기 쉬움.
measure 척도. negative 부정적인. label 꼬리표, 라벨, 상표. boast 자랑하다.

B. 구문
- You consider medicating . . . Ritalin over-parenting.
[여러분(학부모)은 리탈린 투약 같은 과잉 양육행위를 고려하게 된다.]
- Parents go out of their way . . . they can get the drug.
cf. so that . . .can/may/will ...하기 위하여
[리탈린 약을 구하기 위하여 부모들은 일부러 아이들이 결함이 있다고 말한다.]
- Almost all of the accommodations . . . gets marked on your record.
[거의 모든 약물복용은 아이들의 시험시간을 연장하는 데에 집중된다. 이런 행위는 더 이상 경력상 오점이 되는 것이 아니다.]
- if you had twice the time to take your SATs.
[ SATs 시험을 치는 시간을 두 배로 연장한다 하더라도]
- they have their kids tested . . . some little vulnerability.]
[부모들은 아이들이 자신들의 이상한 버릇이나 취약점을 발견하도록 시험을 치게 한 셈이다.]
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