Helicopter parenting
The whole concept of "helicopter parents" is so offensive. The snarky implication that other parents - it is always OTHER parents - are too involved and too enmeshed and just too too.
It is the same condescension visited on parents who "don't care" and appear to be outsourcing all their parental responsibilities.
I've been accused of both ends of the spectrum. And I've got kids on opposite sides of the personality prism.
Kids are not extruded from a factory pipe. Some need more, some need less. When it works out, everyone cheers. When things go wrong, fingers get pointy - for the exact same parenting.
Here's one for the Helicopter parents: "There's an upside to intervening parents. Their children are more engaged in college life, happier and reporting getting more from the experience."
It is the same condescension visited on parents who "don't care" and appear to be outsourcing all their parental responsibilities.
I've been accused of both ends of the spectrum. And I've got kids on opposite sides of the personality prism.
Kids are not extruded from a factory pipe. Some need more, some need less. When it works out, everyone cheers. When things go wrong, fingers get pointy - for the exact same parenting.
Here's one for the Helicopter parents: "There's an upside to intervening parents. Their children are more engaged in college life, happier and reporting getting more from the experience."
It's just a media movement to create issues to report. After all, there's also continual coverage of the demise of the traditional family. More traditional cultures, where extended families live together or near each other, are revered. However, should parents actually stay involved in children's lives beyond age 18, they're called helicopter parents.
ReplyDeleteOn the flip side, adult children are chided for not caring for their elderly parents. The evidence to support that idea is not there; older parents are taken care of by their children in the U.S. The media has to create issues.