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SARAH VINE: Why pushy parents are only in it for themselves

Published: 21:01 EST, 17 November 2015 | Updated: 21:01 EST, 17 November 2015

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Excuse me while I perform a quick victory jig. A little wiggle of delight. Why? Because a new study reveals that being a pushy parent can actually harm a child’s chances of success in life.

Don’t get me wrong, there’s no shame in having ambitions for your child.

But there’s a huge difference between being an aspirational parent — the sort who teaches the value of hard work to get on — and a pushy one, which is a uniquely 21st-century phenomenon.

Aspirational parents simply want the best for their children, and are equally attuned to their abilities and their weaknesses.

There’s a huge difference between being an aspirational parent — the sort who teaches the value of hard work to get on — and a pushy one, writes Sarah Vine (file photo of a mother with child)

A pushy parent is quite the opposite. Their ambitions arise out of pure vanity — because it’s all about them, you see. They believe the performance of their offspring directly reflects on them.

Their child’s principal role in life is to fulfil their own burning ambition to become the indisputable alpha parent.

Often, they are former career women who, driven half mad by the mundanity of full-time motherhood, manage their children as though they were publicly listed companies and not small humans best suited to laughing at bottom jokes.

Everything their offspring does is an indicator of their own socio-educational stock. Their mothering is ruthlessly strategic. Nothing is left to chance.

The first Syrian refugees arrived in Scotland yesterday. I wonder how many of them will be staying with Nicola ‘I’m happy to house refugees’ Sturgeon?

They micro-manage playdates — as in, no, you can’t play with Tommy. He’s not in the top set in maths, and besides, his mother’s divorced. But you can see Wilfred: he just got 98 per cent in his 11-plus. No matter that Wilfred may be dull as ditchwater and can barely make eye contact.

Pushy parents dominate school and extra-curricular activities. Show me a PTA rep, and I’ll show you a pushy parent. And they’re always at the front of the queue when it comes to organising a fete.

Their brass neck is astonishing. We had one in my daughter’s old school, and her methods would have put Machiavelli to shame.

INDULGING OUR ENEMIES

Only in Britain — caring, sharing, liberal Britain — could it have been possible for a group of women-hating, freedom-denying Islamist zealots to preach unchecked their terrifying views on the very same evening that innocent young people were being slaughtered in Paris.

That is exactly what happened last Friday in the genteel English county town of Bedford, where a panel of speakers — described as an ‘Islamist Rogues Gallery’ and, naturally, all-male — called on British Muslims to strive for an Islamic state.

They included Moazzam Begg, founder of campaign group Cage, whose research director called Jihadi John a ‘beautiful young man’.

We all know what would happen to any speaker who dared stand up at a meeting in downtown Riyadh or Raqqa to argue against the Saudi state or ISIS rule.

But in Britain, we don’t just tolerate our enemies, we give them public platforms to denounce us.

Then we invite them onto BBC chat shows, bung them benefits cheques and give them legal aid to sue the Government that subsidises their lifestyle of hate.

I won’t get too specific; suffice to say, her child had to have a lead role — if not the lead role — in every class endeavour. And if that meant elbowing eight-year-olds out of her way, so be it.

In Year 6, for the end of primary school play, she insisted on taking over the entire production. She then ruthlessly and shamelessly re-worked the script so that her daughter became the star of the show.

When finally I got to see it, I cried. Everyone (including the stupid, vain woman herself) thought I was crying because my baby was growing up. (As if!)

In fact, I was crying because my child — who’d been breathless with excitement for months about this night — had had all her carefully rehearsed lines cut.

She wasn’t the only one either: several other girls had been relegated to the sidelines.

Pushy mum, naturally, was so proud. But of whom, one wonders.

Victory, yes. But at what cost? Because if you’re the child of a pushy parent, what do you do when they’re no longer there to do all that pushing?

All the people I know whose parents attempted to satisfy their own thwarted ambitions via their offspring have grown up to have real emotional problems.

They suffer from low self-esteem and a permanent sense of dissatisfaction. They are driven, successful; but they seem to struggle to enjoy that success.

The fact is that children are not second chances for disillusioned adults. Encourage your child to be their best, by all means. But don’t push them over the edge.

Not such a Klass act

Universal excitement as Jorgie Porter, the pretty, sexy, young one in this year’s I’m A Celebrity ... Get Me Out Of Here!, changed into a transparent white bathing costume for that all-important Myleene Klass memorial jungle shower moment.

And briefly, it looked like it was going to be a triumph for the 27-year-old Hollyoaks star: the swept back wet hair, the mouth dripping with water, the half-closed eyes.

And then … the legs. And there all similarities with Myleene Klass end.

Ah, there is a God after all!

Sarah Vine said it looked like it was going to be a triumph for Jorgie Porter in I'm A Celebrity...Get Me Out Of Here! And then the legs, she writes

I’m not sure how well this new Met Office idea of naming storms is going.

First we had Abigail, now Barney. It’s like morning registration at a posh London prep school.

Surely they can think of something a little more dramatic? Ajax or Aeneas, perhaps, or Boreus, the Greek god of the North Wind? The possibilities are endless. As it is, the next one’s almost guaranteed to be called Charlotte.

Tomtato? A veg too far

I don’t know about what’s being hailed as the food of the future — such as tomtato (half tomato, half potato), sweet Brussels sprouts and pizzas with a shelf life of three years — but I quite liked the food of the past. Tomatoes that tasted of tomatoes, meat that didn’t make men grow man-boobs and vegetables that weren’t all a creepily uniform shape.

If scientists can engineer a machine that prints pasta, then surely they can manage that?

Oh for the innocence of Madam Cyn's day

Reading about Cynthia Payne — the suburban seductress (right) who traded sex for Luncheon Vouchers — I couldn’t help feel a pang of nostalgia for an age when sex, even paid-for sex, seemed somehow more innocent.

Yes, she was running a house of ill-repute, but the truth is that she was scrupulously private, coy even, about what went on behind her front door in Streatham.

Madam Cynthia Payne is pictured at her home in Streatham, in London, in 2006

Nowadays, absolutely nothing is left to the imagination. Everything is luridly on display. People text each other pictures of their privates before they’ve even been formally introduced.

I’ve never met Miley Cyrus but I think I have a pretty accurate idea of what she would look like in bed. The internet is like the meat counter in Sainsbury’s: acres of plucked flesh on display for all to see.

How ironic that it should take the life of Madam Cyn to remind us of how much more civilised we used to be.

‘I’m not happy with the shoot-to-kill policy,’ says concerned Jeremy from Islington. Well, none of us are. But in the event of an all-out terrorist attack on British soil, what are the authorities meant to do? Box the murderers’ ears and send them home to their mothers?

Try the 'off' button, DOC

To the doctor calling for smartphones to have a ‘bed’ mode, in order to prevent them disrupting sleep, especially among children. They already do: it’s called the ‘off’ button.

It’s great, you should try it some time.

My award for the most nauseating hypocrite of the week goes to Gerry Adams, who tweeted the following on Friday night: ‘The deplorable attacks tonight in #Paris are to be condemned. My thoughts at this time are with those killed or injured.’