Last weekend I saw in the media an expression I had not heard before: snowplow parents. For a while we've heard about helicopter parents -- parents who hover over their kids with an overprotective desire to make sure that nothing bad happens. But snowplow parents was a new one.
Apparently the idea is that some parents are so concerned about assuring the success of their kids that they literally clear a path, like a snow plow, so that nothing stands in their child's way. The term was used in the context of the news reports about ultra-rich parents who paid vast amounts of money, literally hundreds of thousands of dollars, in bribes and fees to get their kids into top colleges by inflating their test scores, athletic abilities and such. Quite the story-- who knew that people would stoop to such a level of fraud and corruption.
I suppose hyper-pushy parents are nothing new, though. We see a first century version of the snowplow parent in today's Gospel (Mt 20: 17- 28) in the person of the mother of the sons of Zebedee. She approaches Jesus boldly and asks that He "command that these two sons of mine sit, one at your right and the other at your left, in your kingdom."
Nothing held back there-- she's basically asking that her boys get the top two spots in the new order, and she isn't shy about it. Remember how surprising it would have been in Jesus time for a woman to approach a man she did not know and engage in conversation, and then reflect on what she asks-- she's a snowplow parent for sure.
Why does she do that? Why did the parents who bribed their kids into Yale and Stanford do that? Are they just too loving, too concerned about getting what is best for their kids?
It is tempting (and somewhat comforting) to think that. After all, we generally applaud parents who zealously support and love their kids.
But I wonder if the answer isn't something different, something more selfish. Note what Jesus says to the mother after she makes her aggressive request. "You do not know what you are asking," He says to the mother, before turning to the sons and asking them if they can "drink the chalice that I am going to drink," meaning suffer in the same way that He will suffer.
The mother hasn't thought about what she is signing up her sons to do, and whether that will be a good thing or a bad thing for them. I wonder if her motivation is more directed at herself, and at what a wonderful position she will be in if her sons are the two most powerful men in the kingdom, after Jesus. If she had thought about what Jesus has been telling His disciples-- that He would be mmocked, scourged and crucified-- would she has been so quick to want to sign up her sons for the new kingdom?
But it seems like the need to "snowplow" for your kids might be less about the kids, and more about what the parents need, about the social capital one gets when one says: "Yes, we're sending our son off to Yale this weekend." Pay no attention to the fact that the child wasn't qualified to get in to Yale on his own, and knows it. Pay no attention that as a result he'll struggle to keep up. Most of all, ignore the terrible life lesson you are teaching-- that the way to succeed is by fraud and bribery.
When we tell ourselves we are doing things for our kids, we might take a closer look at our motivations, especially if what we're doing doesn't pass the smell test. We can use kids (and other relationships) to justify all sorts of behaviors. They can be a nice cover for what is truly selfish activity.
That certainly seems to be the case with the "snowplows."