The movie that best illustrates today’s parenting expectations is “The Miracle Worker,” about Helen Keller.
When Annie Sullivan is hired as governess, she gets feral Helen to eat off her own plate — a harrowing process. The parents are so thrilled, they are ready to let Annie go. She has done all they hoped for.
Annie says no. This is only the beginning.
The rest is history…and worth pondering.
Not so great expectations.
It feels like today’s parents have been trained to keep their expectations of their kids’ independence very, very low. A 2025 Institute for Family Studies survey of 24,000 Americans found the majority of parents of 14-year-olds won’t let them leave the block.
Seeing kids age 5 — 9 — 14 do the most minor things on their own (walk the dog, scramble eggs) feels like a huge win. And it is. As was Helen eating off her own plate.
But it is so much less than they COULD be doing if we let them. It’s like Gus the polar bear in Central Park: born for the ocean, reared in a pond.
He went nuts.
The Independence gap.
The gap between what kids can do and what we expect them to do is so wide that kids are falling into it. This can look like anxiety. Or depression. Or passivity. It is the independence gap.
I’m haunted by a 7-year-old who told me how excited he was that he was allowed to go to karate on his own — his big kid moment.
Cool, I said. How’d you get there? Bike? Foot? Scooter?
“I opened the car door and walked into the dojo while my mom parked the car.”
I don’t blame either of them for considering this a big deal. I blame a culture that has eviscerated our belief that kids can do ANYTHING without constant supervision. A culture that celebrates the tiniest of “achievements” as milestones. “You put the recycling in the bin!”
Look to Annie and Helen.
We are setting the bar so low. A 1980 child development book said neurotypical kids are generally walking 4-8 blocks on their own at age 6. There is something wrong with a society that treats today’s 14-year-olds as far, far less competent than 6-year-olds in living memory.
It’s as if, over the course of 40 years, our trust in kids has fallen off a cliff. Into the independence gap.
Annie Sullivan saw how capable Helen Keller could be. Expecting competence is what unleashed Helen’s potential — and happiness — into a bigger, brighter, wilder world than anyone ever dreamed.
It is time to dream bigger for our kids.
*
NOTE: THIS IS A GRAPH OF WHAT 6-YEAR-OLDS WERE EXPECTED TO DO IN THE EARLY 1980s vs WHAT THE MAJORITY OF 14 YEAR-OLDS WERE ALLOWED TO DO IN 2025.
