There’s a new, brutally frank book called A Nation of Wimps: The High Cost of Invasive Parenting, by Hara Estroff Marano (www.nationofwimps.com/). It really has me thinking. Am I raising my kids to depend on me for everything? Sure, I’ve read and agreed with most of Wendy Mogel’s The Blessing of a Skinned Knee (www.wendymogel.com/books.html), but have I followed its principles to allow my children to fall on their butts now so they learn how to get back up on their own power?

I battle with myself almost daily about being appropriately protective and educational. Just the other night, my wife and I discussed the fact that our kindergartner is not reading yet. The teacher said the other kids in the class were reading and she didn’t want our kid to lag. She wasn’t mean about it but she did alarm us. Should we work with our son every night, drill him, get him a tutor, as some parents seem to be doing even at this early stage of education? Up till this point, it hadn’t been a concern because our oldest didn’t learn to read until he was well into first grade — well behind his classmates. His teacher told us not to push, to let our child struggle and come to reading on his own steam. Now he consumes books out of the joy of reading. Certainly, our kids are different, but we are going to refrain from making a federal case out of it and let him fail a little. We have faith that he’ll learn to read and realize that he doesn’t need us to move his eyes across the page.

I’m not sure if this is a perfect example of how to avoid invasive parenting, but it is one touchpoint of concern in an age in which many moms and dads believe good parenting means hand-holding a child through school, friendships, athletics, and more. A Nation of Wimps addresses the dangers too much coddling can lead to, including depression and aimlessness in kids as they grow older. The author also offers approaches to helping our children take smart risks and make decisions for themselves. As shattering as the book can be to our own sense of being good, involved parents, it is worth the pain now to learn how to raise strong, independent human beings.

My eldest son turns 10 in a few days. He’s into double digits and only five years away from high school. It’s the kind of event that has me choking up every time I see an insurance commercial showing an infant growing up to be a man graduating from college. I hate those commercials, especially because they also depict the dad going from a spry 20 or 30-something to a gray-haired, cardigan-wearing old guy. Even as my own birthday looms four days after Benjamin’s, I’m not ready to consider the advertiser version of aging — and I’m not ever going to wear a cardigan!

Still, I find myself dipping into the well of cliches as I wonder where the time has gone. Just yesterday my son was a chubby baby who used to bounce from laughing so hard when I said a simple “boo.” I have to fight off the strains of Sunrise, Sunset as I watch him work out complex math equations when just a minute ago he was in Gymboree, counting “one, two, fwee.”

While I do have a dull ache about how quickly all this goes by, I’m working hard to stave off the pangs of regret. I know there have been too many days when I worked too long and got angry too quickly. But, overall, I have played with him lots, read to him tons, picked him up early when he’s been sick, volunteered at his school, and listened to him tell me jokes he’s learned on the playground. There’s no time for sadness — the time is for doing and being with him and his equally fast-growing brothers.

So I wish you, Benjamin, the happiest of birthdays. Thank you for helping me live more of my life in the moment.