I recently read a couple articles that pinpoint an interesting issue for American parents. The first was the story of a Boston University student who woke up in the middle of the night realizing his fraternity house was on fire and immediately grabbed the phone and called his parents. Not 911, or the fire department, or university police. But Mom and Dad. Who then called 911. Seven people were injured in the blaze, and one has to wonder if maybe this could have been avoided if 911 was called first.
I realize I’m making an assumption here, but I’m willing to bet this is a result of what’s known as “helicopter parenting”, when parents over-protect and over-manage the lives of their kids to the point that they are unable to manage life on their own. By sheltering their kids from the often dark realities of life (i.e., fires happen, and here’s how to protect yourself) they fail to instill the essential qualities of independence and self-preservation. These parents, who are surely acting out of love, are in fact hindering their child’s ability to grow into full-fledged, mature adults.
I love my kids as much as the next mom. I want to protect them, I wish I could shelter them, and I’m sure I’ll want to continue involvement in their lives as they grow older. But I also see the reality that my job is to teach, model the right behavior, support, and then push them from the nest. They’ll know where the nest is, they can come home every once in a while for a home-cooked meal and a pep talk. But I look forward to the time when my role will change from life-manager and schedule-coordinator to cheerleader.
I remember calling my mom from college for help on occasion, like the time when I was completely lost during my one and only computer programming course. (Remember FORTRAN? Good thing I took that course. FORTRAN is everywhere.) But she didn’t fix it for me. She didn’t call the professor or do my work for me (which, I admit, is what I was hoping. She was a software programmer, after all. Help a sister out!) She just listened, and then said, “Well, good luck with that!” and I went back to managing my own life. I got through it, like all the other sticky situations I’ve been in, and I’m a stronger person for it.
Conversely, on the other end of the scale, is this article highlighting the differences between parenting in the US and Europe. American ex-pats living in France noted a very different parenting approach in their French friends. One where the child is not the center of the house, but rather adapts to the existing family life, and while “childhood trumps adulthood in the States, the opposite is largely true in France”. Does this lead to a more independent, less self-entitled young adult? Very possible. As with most things, I try to avoid the extremes and fall somewhere in the middle. (But in full disclosure, you should know I’m writing this article with a two year old child sitting on my head. Two year olds come with the innate and complete belief that we work for them. I spend most of my day trying to re-program my toddler, but sometimes you just gotta do what it takes to get things done.)
I think we all want to remain important to our children as they grow, but shouldn’t we balance that with our children’s eventual need to manage the ups and downs of daily adult life? When we’re in the trenches of daily parenting, it can be easy to forget that the point of all this is to raise the next generation of leaders, thinkers, problem solvers. Our future CEOs, doctors, teachers, and presidents. And I think I speak for most people when I say we’d rather they not need to call Mom and Dad every time life gets rough. We’d rather they call home at the end of a successful day to say, “Guess what I did?!”
