"please let me live my life!" he thinks while they fly above...
Moms quit jobs for their child’s college dreams – CNN.com.
According to Wikipedia: “Helicopter parent is a colloquial, early 21st-century term for a parent who pays extremely close attention to his or her child’s or children’s experiences and problems, particularly at educational institutions. The term was originally coined by Foster W. Cline, M.D. and Jim Fay in their 1990 book Parenting with Love and Logic: Teaching Children Responsibility[1], although Dr. Haim G. Ginott mentions a teen who complains, “Mother hovers over me like a helicopter…” on page 18 of the bestselling book Between Parent & Teenager published in 1969. Helicopter parents are so named because, like helicopters, they hover closely overhead, rarely out of reach, whether their children need them or not. In Scandinavia, this phenomenon is known as curling parenthood and describes parents who attempt to sweep all obstacles out of the paths of their children. It is also called “overparenting”.”
And if you want a prime example of this phenomenon, see the article above. Feeling lazy? Here you go: Moms quit jobs for their child’s college dreams – CNN.com.
In this article you can find the picture, perfect example what a helicopter parent is. Once again, I feel the need to apologize and insist that I am not being a hater…but this one was just too juicy to resist.
I mean really. Reading this article took me back to my high school days and I got chills going up and down my spine. Honestly, some students who go to high school these days are really just victims of ambitious-elitist-academia-by-proxy, due to their parents childish and ridiculous hold on their lives. Oh my the damage these helicopter parents do.
From a personal perspective, I have always had a really close relationship with my mother, she really helped me during my high school years to figure out the big bad world of college admissions…but quit her job to do it? Really? And quit her job to schedule my entire life around mind-numbing activities, so I can go to some for-profit disguised as a non-profit institution filled to the brim with helicopter parent products?
No thank you, I’m good.
In today’s society it seems like the culture of overbearingness is deemed normal. I just don’t see how putting such intense pressure on your children to attend SAT tutoring, tennis lessons, fencing lessons, and Oboe society sessions has to do with their well being. Most of the time they are just going along with it, running from appointment to appointment with their head spinning. Does anyone do anything anymore for the pleasure of it? Because it is their passion? College admissions and resume fodder is what drives the youth of today!
And unfortunately it does not seem to get better with age. Even in college I witnessed incidents of people doing things just to say they did it, and this is a habit that will no doubt follow these particular individuals for the rest of their lives.
I actually had a conversation today with two women about another form of helicopter parenting: the athlete version.
The women were mentioning how the swimming team in my area for 5-6 year olds were so competitive…that they make the children go swimming 4 o’clock in the morning. Every morning…..
WHAT IS REALLY GOING ON.
If you look at many of the most famous athletes, many of them had at least one helicopter parent…Venus and Serena, Tiger, Michael Phelps…all had helicopter parents that pushed them to the limit…
Yes it is the main reason they are where they are today, but at what price? Can you imagine 5 and 6 year olds forced to wake up 3:30 in the morning to go swimming? I don’t even want to think about it.
But I digress…basically Moms all over the country are abandoning their personal goals and dreams to dictate the academic moves of their children…
Would you quit your job to ensure the success of your child’s college admissions? And that be your primary goal? Would you let your child do what they want to do? When and where do we cross the line????
If you want some additional food for thought, and a great counterargument check out TIME’s article on helicopter parents:
The Growing Backlash Against Overparenting
