Move over, helicopter parents. “Snowplow(扫雪机)parents” are the newest reflection of an intensive(强化的)parenting style that can include parents booking their adult children haircuts, texting their college kids to wake them up so they don’t sleep through a test, and even calling their kids’ employers.

Helicopter parenting, the practice of wandering anxiously near one’s children, monitoring their every activity, is so 20th century. Some rich mothers and fathers now are more like snowplows: machines moving ahead, clearing any difficulties in their children’s path to success, so they don’t have to suffer failure, frustration (挫折) or lose opportunities.

It starts early, when parents get on wait lists for excellent preschools before their babies are born and try to make sure their kids never do anything that may frustrate them. It gets more intense when school starts: running forgotten homework to school or calling a coach to request that their children make the team.

Rich parents may have more time and money to devote to making sure their children don’t ever meet with failure, but it’s not only rich parents practicing snowplow parenting. This intensive parenting has become the most welcome way to raise children, regardless of income, education, or race.

Yes, it’s a parent’s job to support the children, and to use their adult wisdom to prepare for the future when their children aren’t mature(成熟的) enough to do so. That’s why parents hide certain toys from babies to avoid getting angry or take away a teenager’s car keys until he finishes his college applications.

But snowplow parents can take it too far, some experts say. If children have never faced a difficulty, what happens when they get into the real world?

“Solving problems, taking risks and overcoming frustration are key life skills,” many child development experts say, “and if parents don’t let their children experience failure, the children don’t gain them.”

More People Are Leaving the Rat Race for the Simple Life

Time is more precious than money for an increasing number of people who are choosing to live more with less—and liking it.

Kay and Charles Giddens, two lawyers, sold their home to start a B&B hotel. Four years later, the couple dishes out banana pancake breakfast, cleans toilets and serves homemade chocolate chip cookies to guests in a B&B hotel surrounded by trees on a hill known for colorful sunsets.

“Do I miss the freeways? Do I miss the traffic? Do I miss the stress? No,” says Ms. Giddens, “This is a phenomenon that’s fairly widespread. A lot of people are reevaluating their lives and figuring out what they want to do. If their base is being damaged, what’s the payoff?”

Simple living ranges from cutting down on weeknight activities to sharing housing, living closer to work, avoiding shopping malls, borrowing books from the library instead of buying them, and taking a cut in pay to work at a more pleasurable job.

Vicki Robin, a writer, lives on a budget equal to a fifth of what she used to make. “You become conscious about where your money is going and how valuable it is,” Ms. Robin says, “You tend not to use things up. You cook at home rather than eat out…”

Janet Luhrs, a lawyer, quit her job after giving birth and leaving her daughter with a nanny for two weeks. “It was not the way I wanted to raise my kids,” she says, “Simplicity is not just about saving money; it’s about me sitting down every night with my kids to a candlelit dinner with classical music.”

Mrs. Luhrs now edits a magazine, Simple Living, which publishes tips on how to buy recycled furniture and shoes, organize potluck dinners instead of expensive receptions, and generally how to consume less.

“It’s not about poverty,” Mrs. Luhrs explains, “It’s about conscious living and creating the life you want. The less stuff you buy, the less money goes out of the door, and the less money you have to earn.”

Children should do housework. That’s a controversial (有争议的) idea, though not everyone will admit it. A few parents will say that their children are too busy for housework. Many more of us assign (分派) housework, or say we believe in them, but the housework just doesn’t get done.

That’s a problem. For starters, housework is good for kids. Being a part of the routine work of running a household helps children develop an awareness of the needs of others, while at the same time contributing to their emotional well-being.

One small study, done over a period of 25 years, found that the best predictor (预测) for young adults’ success in their mid-20s was whether they participated in household tasks at age 3 or 4. Those early shared responsibilities extended to a sense of responsibility in other areas of their lives.

But for all that their help matters, few kids are doing much around the house at all. In a survey of 1,000 American adults, 75 percent said they believed regular housework made kids “more responsible”. Yet while 82 percent reported having had regular housework growing up, only 56 percent of those with children said they required them to do housework.

Sports and homework are not get-out-of-housework-free cards. The goal, after all, is to raise adults who can balance a caring role in their families and communities with whatever lifetime achievement goals they choose. Housework teaches that balance.

What should you do when getting children to do housework? Accept no excuses. Don’t worry if you must repeat yourself again and again. If you’re spending more time getting the child to do this job than it would take to do it yourself, then you’re doing it right. Can a payment help? Maybe. But if you’re trying to teach kids to share the responsibility of a home, paying them for routine housework is not the right message.