By SUSAN G. DUNN

Obsessing about their children’s allergies, their intellectual and social development, their moment-to-moment happiness, even their pre-middle-school resumes, modern parents have earned the scorn of New York Times columnist Judith Warner, who blasted today’s child-centric parents in her book “Perfect Madness: Motherhood in the Age of Anxiety.”

Speaking recently at The Park School, Warner found a Baltimore-area crowd that was quite eager to peer into her harsh mirror and see if they saw hovering, “helicopter parents” staring back.

With yearly tuition hovering at $20,000 at area independent schools, perfectionist moms shuttling their daughters up to hunt country riding lessons and lacrosse dads who teach their kids to cradle before they know their ABCs, the Baltimore region is fertile territory for the kind of debate Warner’s book engenders.

“My parents think I’m crazy,” one young mother said, during Warner’s talk earlier this month on “Parenting in the Age of Anxiety.” “They think my kids need limits… I need to set boundaries.

The best-selling author and Domestic Disturbances columnist kept an auditorium of private school parents rapt with the news that the anxiety doesn’t appear to be waning anytime soon. Audience members shared tales from the trenches that confirmed it all too well: stressed-out parents offered stories of medical misdiagnoses, food fears, inadequate child care, and grandparents who just don’t get it.

Sadly, part of the problem, Warner said, is a high-octane American culture we can’t seem to escape. Warner left the U.S. for France in 2000, returning five years and two children later to an American way of parenting she found expensive, competitive, judgmental and tough.

It’s too simple, she said, to conclude that the phenomenon is just a result of affluent parents raising neurotic kids. From Attention Deficit Disorder to depression and Asperger’s Syndrome, more knowledge has led to more diagnoses (….for well-off kids, at least. Impoverished children remain under-diagnosed, she pointed out.)

Desperate parents, she empathized, look for answers, not perfection. It beats the old days, when, as one counselor told Warner: “There were two types of diagnoses: smart and dumb. And two treatments: try harder or get slapped.”

“We actually don’t feel like we have control over anything,” she said, “which is why we obsess over the things we can control, like coaches and tutors…”

Add to that the anxiety fueled by the recent economic downturn and worried parents become even more anxious to see that kids put forth their competitive best.

Pretty soon, as Warner tells it, the extended responsibility of parenthood–the guidance, the management, the daily demands–on top of the responsibilities of work and home, put us over the edge, causing moms and dads alike to lose their identities, dreams, even marriages to child-rearing.

What is the root cause of our obsession? Warner’s research points to emotional wounding: parents who felt their parents didn’t see who they really were (see “try harder or get slapped,” above) and want to do differently with their own kids. Unfortunately, hovering, helicopter parents, obsessive stage moms and dads, and sideline, big-mouth parent coaches can be the result.

But maybe there’s hope for the next generation. The pendulum seems to be swinging in the opposite direction as Gen Y-ers rebel against the hyper-child centered culture created by baby boomers. Every generation wants to do it differently than the last, it seems. And the recession, she said, may give parents the cover they need to scale back their parental intensity.

Let’s just not go back to the slapping.

Susan Dunn is a Baltimore writer and the former editor and publisher of Paper Doll.