It’s every mom’s nightmare: Somehow you’ll manage to screw up your kids so badly, you’ll leave them with a lifetime of psychological pain, forcing them into therapy where they regularly discuss just how horribly you failed them.

Might as well accept it, because even if you do everything right—perfect, even—your children still are going to suffer. That’s the word from therapist and author Lori Gottlieb, whose story “How to Land Your Kid in Therapy” in the current issue of The Atlantic makes the argument that parents who give their children the happiest of childhoods may actually be doing them a big disservice.

Gottlieb says many of her patients suffering from depression and anxiety called their parents their best pals.

“They’d say things like ‘My parents are always there for me.’ Sometimes these same parents would even be funding their psychotherapy (not to mention their rent and car insurance), which left my patients feeling both guilty and utterly confused," she writes. "After all, their biggest complaint was that they had nothing to complain about!”

Experts tell Gottlieb that parents who offer excessive coddling and protection are setting their children up for future failures: Never receiving negative feedback or criticism or never learning problem-solving skills on their own can make the world seem very cruel to newly independent young adults. ("What, boss, I don't get a gold star and public acknowlegment for working all the way until 5 p.m. today? What kind of monster are you!?")

Of course, making your kids feel terrible about themselves will probably land them in therapy, too. 

So it seems all we can do as moms is strive to do our best, keep our children safe and try to clip those helicopter wings. Just think of the therapy bills that'll save you.
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