The Stoic philosopher Seneca got front-row seats to one of the worst parenting jobs in history. In 49 AD, he was recalled from exile to tutor a twelve-year-old named Nero. The ancient historian Cassius Dio tells us that the boy’s mother, the empress Agrippina, had the entire empire under her thumb and used her power to make sure her boy never had to struggle for anything. She was what we today call a snowplow parent. And in clearing the path of every conceivable impediment and obstacle, Agrippina created a monster, one of the worst human beings in history.
It’s little mystery why we see Seneca write over and over again about the importance of struggling with and overcoming adversity. The job of “the good parent,” he says, is to “out of love for the child, [act] as a trainer, endlessly manufacturing trials for the child.” The job of the good parent is to make their child’s life good, not easy.
There is a great Latin expression, “Luctor et emergo.” It means “I struggle and emerge” or “I wrestle with and overcome.” The gods, Seneca writes, “want us to be as good, as virtuous as possible, so assign to us a fortune that will make us struggle.” Without struggle, he says, “no one will know what you were capable of, not even yourself.”
It is hard not to be a snowplow or helicopter parent. We love our kids so much; we want nothing but the best for them. We can’t bear the thought, let alone the sight, of their struggling. But we have to let them scramble through the brambles and the pitfalls of growing up. We have to remind ourselves day after day: a child’s life should be good, not easy.