Despite her two-year lobbying campaign, our oldest child is not enrolled in Irish dance lessons this fall.

        Our 7-year-old also will not be trying out for the basketball team, taking up a foreign language or beginning music lessons.

        She will be playing soccer and she will be a Brownie. Period.

        Her 5-year-old brother will be equally denied, with a sole hour of soccer making up his entire extracurricular schedule each week.

        Their 3-year-old sister will be the most deprived of all. No Mom-n-Tot classes. No play groups. No Babies Who Love Bach enrichment sessions. Just a couple mornings of preschool, one hour of Sunday school and a lot of time with Mom.

        I refuse to be a hyper-parent.

Well-meaning folks

        Apparently, I'm bucking the trend on this one. Hyper-parenting is all the rage these days, according to Hyper-Parenting: Are You Hurting Your Child by Trying Too Hard? (St. Martins; $22.95), published last year by psychiatrist Alvin Rosenfeld.

        You can guess the hyper-parent profile even without reading the book: These are the well-meaning folks who sign their kids up for 12 activities at once, taking one to before-school hockey practice, another to after-school French class, a third to swimming lessons on the way home from Cub Scouts.

        These are the white-knuckled moms and dads, racing through yellow lights at 6 p.m., dashing from practice to game to lesson while their kids eat Big Macs in the back seat.

        These are the parents who have to get themselves and their kids up before 6 to keep up with the pace and don't call it quits until well past the late news to get it all done.

        These are the parents convinced their kids need Daytimers bulging with obligations to build their characters and increase their skill sets and get into the high school/college/grad school/fast-track Fortune 500 career of their choice.

        These are the parents I don't want to join.

Bad Wednesdays

        Regretfully, with school and soccer season now under way, we're perilously close to hyper-ness at least one day a week.

        For us, it's Wednesdays. I work a half-day; my husband all day. The older kids are in school; our sitter spends the afternoon with our youngest.

        From 3 o'clock on, we're all racing the clock. The homework's got to be done before the soccer gear is packed before the dinner is served before the soccer practice starts. My husband gets home with just enough time to load the kids in the car; I show up at the soccer field a little while later. Practice done, the sun now setting, we race home for baths, books and bedtime. The first Wednesday on this schedule, we forgot about dinner until the kids complained of hunger. At 9 p.m., cereal was the best we could do.

        Thankfully, we're far less hyper the other six days of the week.

        But there is pressure to do more.

        The fliers come home from school, promoting yet-another out-of-class offering.

        The other kids are signing up, increasing the pull to do the same. “It's just once a week,” your child pleads. “Can I, please?”

One more hour

        To which you begin to think: If my kid can handle soccer and Brownies and still complete her homework and get nine hours of sleep, what's wrong with adding those coveted once-a-week Irish dance lessons?

        Nothing, really. But that activity steals a few more hours from the week. And if she gets to do three extracurriculars, shouldn't her brother get at least two? And what about that poor last child, getting dragged to all those hot and buggy soccer fields? Would a little class at the Y really complicate life all that much?

        Well, yes.

        It will mean more hours in the car, more fast food and more rushed bedtimes.

        It will mean more frazzled parents, trying to squeeze laundry, housekeeping, grocery shopping, bill paying, yard work, and, oh by the way, paying jobs, between their children's bookings.

        And it will mean robbing kids of time to ride their bikes or play puppies with their siblings or collect rocks with the neighbor kids or, on occasion, veg out in their jammies until lunchtime on a Saturday.

        Our oldest, Frances, took the news about the dance lessons stoically. She holds out hope she'll get them some year, but knows she might have to drop one of her other two activities to get the go-ahead.

        Besides, with a good supply of free time on her hands, she can retreat to the basement, pick an outfit from the costume box and dance to a CD of Irish music anytime she wants.
       Contact Patricia Gallagher Newberry at newgal@one.net.

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