United States of America – The Enabling Parent

As a new parent (2 ½ year old and 7 month old girls), I am constantly second guessing my parenting skills and decisions. My main goal as a parent is to make sure my daughters become positive contributors to society. Their success in life cannot be measured in salary, degrees, or power. Yes, I want them to be better off than me; I do not want them to have the same money concerns that I have. But I will consider myself a successful parent if my children are honest, law abiding citizens that take personal responsibility for their decisions. This cannot happen if Daddy enables them their entire life. When my oldest learned to walk, I was there to catch her if she fell. That was great for a little while, but I needed to step away and let her fall. This taught her no to over extend herself if she was reaching for something, or to control her balance. When she first learned to use a “big girl” glass, I helped her pick it up and find her mouth without spilling the contents. Now, I need to let her spill. She learns that she must clean up her messes and the consequences of not holding the cup still. I am sure this type of parenting will continue to occur as my girls get closer to adulthood. There will be bike accidents, boyfriends breaking her heart (over my dead body J), car accidents, and education choices. There will be failures, but I will be there to help her learn from these mistakes, pick herself up, and keep going. This will continue to be the case when she is an adult. She will fail and it will hurt. But how we deal with failure will be my biggest lesson to my girls. Learn from it, correct it as best as possible

As I think about that, it makes me worry about how our government deals with failure. The most prominent example has been the recent action by the Federal Reserve to protect against the failure of Bear Sterns, Freddie Mac, and Fannie Mae (read the Op-Ed Column that set me off). On the surface, these bailout situations make perfect sense. If Bear Sterns would have been let to fail, then the waves it would have sent through the nation’s economy would have been tragic. The credit markets would have tightened up numerous times more than it actually did and stock holders would have devastating losses. People would have been hurt. The same would go for the failure of Fannie and Freddie, just to an nth degree.

Yet, in the long term scope, failure may have been the best thing that would have happened to us. The same as what falling did for my daughter or even 9-11 did for us and national security. At our lowest points do we gain the most appreciation and motivation for success. If financial companies would have failed, then by God, the ones that survived would be forced by the free market to be more thorough in their analysis and be focused more on long term viability than short term profits. The market would gain the power to force these institutions to comply with more transparent financial reports, more conservative investments, and more hedges for riskier operations. The free market allows for choice. It allows for innovation. It allows for transformation and adaptation. The allows people to judge for themselves what options are best for them, not telling them what is best for them. It is like going to Baskin Robins and finding 31 containers of vanilla ice cream. On average, most people like vanilla. But, some like Chocolate more, or Strawberry, or even Double Peanut Butter Banana. While you may lose money if you buy a flavor you don’t like, you were able to learn not to buy that one again. If enough people do not like the flavor, the store will no longer stock it because it will not sell. That is the beauty of the free market. It lets the people decide, not some bureaucrat or faceless regulator.

Like it or not, the free market encourages success. The government encourages adequacy. The free market is the parent that lets their children fail, but helps them learn and grow for the future. The government is the enabling parent that turns out spoiled brats that continue to make the same mistakes over and over again. So, let’s stop allowing government to swaddle us to death and have the guts to push away and walk on our own. It is amazing how well we will do.