Helicopter Parenting
- Thread starter Sparkplug
- Start date
I got dropped off and told, Let us know when you find a place to live.
Well my parents made me walk to and from college and it was uphill both ways.
My parents pretty much said don’t embarrass us and graduate in 4 years. I don’t think they were ever embarrassed of me, but it’s hard to be embarrassed when you don’t know what happened!
Well MY parents checked in on me once a week and showed interest in my academics, career fair, job interviews, friendships, serious relationships, clubs etc.
Feel like we’re measuring how non-helicopter we all were raised. Showing interest and support doesn’t mean hovering and removing barriers.
Feel like we’re measuring how non-helicopter we all were raised. Showing interest and support doesn’t mean hovering and removing barriers.
I am outraged. And livid. I denounce everything that I should denounce.
Hovering would have been going to the job interview and career fair for you. Doing a background check on relationships. Having passwords to university accounts.
I already have the password for my sons account. Only one, told him I can’t pay anything if I can’t see what I have to pay.
Like many things, there typically isn't ONLY one way to do something. Good to hear it worked out for you. I've heard/seen too many stories that start like yours, but end up still under mom and dad's roof at 25, 28, 32... Nice and cushy when you can have a home cooked meal and laundry done for you (not saying you specifically). I'm definitely the type that needs to force myself outside of the comfort zone and rip the band-aid off.
Stuff You Should Know guys put out an interesting podcast on free-range parenting. Worth a listen.
My take: you're responsible for your child's upbringing and you should be involved in their lives. However, you need to give them enough room to take risks and either succeed or fail. It's so hard to not step in and save them from falling (literally when they're little and figuratively as they grow).
When my kids go off to school, I just have to know they'll make decisions I agree and disagree with and hope the values we instilled in them will carry them to success.
My take: you're responsible for your child's upbringing and you should be involved in their lives. However, you need to give them enough room to take risks and either succeed or fail. It's so hard to not step in and save them from falling (literally when they're little and figuratively as they grow).
When my kids go off to school, I just have to know they'll make decisions I agree and disagree with and hope the values we instilled in them will carry them to success.
The bold statement above is absolutely true.
I can argue an opposite case, however, as I am sure you could with your own life. Sometimes biting off more than you can chew too early can lead to a serious setback or even failure, which wastes a lot of time, money, and ends up putting you on a worse path.
Say, for instance, somebody like me, instead of sticking very close to home for college ends up going out-of-state, far from home. If said example cannot hack it... homesick, unable to adjust to living on their own, unable to engender a social life, does not adjust to the material, gets far too mixed up in the myriad of temptations, there are plenty of ways that can go wrong... and ends up botching their freshman year, well, sounds like the situation you described just became all the more likely. That can be a good way to fail and become discouraged.
I will give an example like that. One of my wife's aunts grew up in Huntington, West Virginia, went to college a few hours away near Columbus (not Ohio State, a small private school), and then was accepted into medical school several places. Those included Ohio State and the University of Cincinnati, both about three hours from home and roughly to the three hour distance for her undergraduate years. Instead, she opted to go to Columbia in New York.
It chewed her up and spit her back out. New York is intimidating now, but this was the Upper West Side in the 1970s. It was a far more rough-and-tumble place, and while I have never had quite the full story from my mother-in-law (as much as she knows it), it sounds like it was the typical stuff that did it -- rotten boyfriend(s), partying too hard in a place where a little WV-OH girl could not hack it, and cheap, plentiful drugs. She made it about 1.5 years and quit.
She went back home, found a different job with roughly 40% of her medical school complete, dropping out in her second year, and never finished. She is close to 60 now and has told me her largest regret was not going to OSU or UC to stay closer to home and closer to a Midwestern culture and people she could trust -- it might have all been different.
So I hear your concerns, but there are downsides to being too ambitious too early, too. I quite enjoyed living at home when I was in school, enjoyed having the extra years close to my father and my brother and able to appreciate it as an adult, and saved a ton of money while doing it. I still had a very active social life, too, with marching band basically manufacturing one for me. When I found my first job in Boston when I was 22, I was ready for it.
I do not see the shame of living at home once you start working, however, as long as you are doing something with your life -- some type of worthwhile education or training or working on a career. If my first job was in, say, Des Moines, I probably would have kept living at home for some amount longer while paying my father a market rate of rent for room and board, which would not have been much in Boone. Young adults generally live with their families, even into their 20s, in most OECD societies even today, at least until they are married or can afford a home.
Last edited:
Big fan of your last comment, about chipping in at a fair market rate had that been the situation (basically a roommate situation). My only counter on your wife's aunt's story is about the rotten boyfriend(s), partying too hard, drugs. All things that were within her decisions and control. Sometimes thing are only as hard as you make them to be, or harder than they need to be from your own doing. But, I can understand the distance from home angle.
The hardest thing for any parent to do is watch their child stumble and fall (and maybe even get hurt), especially when they can see it coming.
And yet it is imperative that these children fall.....or they will not learn to get back up on their own. I had one child who got to college, and the lure of booze and partying was too strong. Made it a year and a half and dropped. Meanwhile, another went off to Michigan and ended up in med school it Pittsburgh. Graduated Magna Cum Laude, never gave me a moment's worry. Sometimes you don't find these things out until it's too late, but it's all part of life.
And yet it is imperative that these children fall.....or they will not learn to get back up on their own. I had one child who got to college, and the lure of booze and partying was too strong. Made it a year and a half and dropped. Meanwhile, another went off to Michigan and ended up in med school it Pittsburgh. Graduated Magna Cum Laude, never gave me a moment's worry. Sometimes you don't find these things out until it's too late, but it's all part of life.
I always understood things with my father that as soon as I was done with school and had an income that I was welcome to stay but would be treated as a boarder (at least when it came to paying rent). I saw no problem with that and think that is fair.
You are right those are "her decisions," but any story of any young adult failing to launch or having a bad time at school and dropping out is "their decision" on some level. I think it is a little more complex and involves knowing what you can handle and how early.
Paraphrasing her, she fell for the allure of the big city and the most prestigious program that had accepted her, going for the big play on third-down instead of just looking to pick up the first-down and continue the drive from there. She let ambitious wants and ego get the best of her when she knew (with some hindsight now, yes, but I do not think she is making this up, and the rest of the family agrees on the story) she probably would have been better off in Columbus or Cincinnati in quieter Midwest cities with nicer/helpful people, with a base of people she knew in each of them, and with the option to drive home on the weekends if she needed to.
Instead, she went for the glamour and the glitz, and it backfired on her pretty badly. Remember, too, that she was in her early 20s and had a B.S. -- not just an 18 year old freshie here. That is an extreme example, but I think an instructive one. A year of JUCO to transition before going off to a four-year school could do a lot of students a lot of good.
Because 18 year olds used to get married, have children, buy houses, have careers, and storm the beaches of Normandy on their way to dying for their country.
Now they... whine on social media?
emotionally-fuming reading thisBecause 18 year olds used to get married, have children, buy houses, have careers, and storm the beaches of Normandy on their way to dying for their country.
Now they... whine on social media?
My parents thankfully gave me the gift of independence. Dropped me off at Wallace Hall and told me if I ever needed anything, just ask. Payed my own way through college and whenever my parents asked if I needed cash, I told them no. That's when they knew their gift was being returned.
Great post.
I don't like one size fits all solutions. Every child is different. Some need to live at home. Some need to live on campus. Some need continued guidance. Some don't. Some need phone calls every night. Others don't.
I think the question a parent has to ask himself/herself is "what does my child need to be successful?" Then do that.
That might have worked out better for me. This whole thread is giving me an unpleasant flashback to immature 17-year old me getting dropped off in front of Wallace Hall 50 years ago this fall. Counselors in my HS were sort of idiots but they were right when they recommended I start in JC. After two quarters my grades were so bad I was close to flunking out at the end of the year. Parents were pretty much absent from the scene.* Rallied and did fine after that but I was close to blowing it. Probably would have ended up driving truck for my dad is small town Iowa rather than being a manager with the Corps of Engineers. Not that that's an awful thing but small town living was just never really my thing. Two summers working in an asphalt plant, a winter delivering fuel in the country and a winter frame carpentering all reminded me of how I kinda liked working indoors.
* More personality and lack of knowledge on this stuff than anything else. I think the only time my dad perked up and may have interfered some is when I got called for an Army physical (back in the draft days). Ended up with a permanent medical deferment (I was actually in the hospital when I got the notice so this wasn't of the bone spurs family of "ailments"). Father was a combat medic in WWII and was not keen on me being a soldier. I know he did some lobbying with doctors and the local board. They cancelled the physical. I pretty sure I would have flunked the physical anyway considering how much weight I had lost.
Last edited:
