Helicopter Parents
Parents Who Do Too Much
By Daniel Muniz

Every generation of parents has had to deal with children reaching adolescence and the subsequent rebellions against parental authority. And some parents are a bit nervous of the “coming of age” of their kids because they too were once rebellious in their youth thus they are apprehensive about having to deal with similar conflicts with their offspring.

However, the emergence of “helicopter parents” is sparking a new trend of parenthood.

Instead of rebelling against authority, children of helicopter parents not only listen to their elders, but they end up doing practically everything that they are told to do even when they are no longer minors.

Helicopter parents pick the colleges their children attend and even select their majors. They have no problem with hounding a professor about test results or accompanying their children to job fairs and handing out their resumes (which they wrote themselves) and even answering questions from job recruiters. Some go as far as having the temerity to actually call up an employer to ask why their child didn’t get the job.

Naturally, plenty of college administrators are dumbfounded and even alarmed by this growing trend. They can understand how some parents have closely monitored and managed their children’s lives from kindergarten all the way up to high school but they are shocked to see how much control and influence these people still have over their offspring even in adulthood.

For some kids, it has reached to the point that they simply cannot think for themselves as an individual person.

Instead, these young adults have to rely on their parents for just about everything in their lives including problem solving and for making major life decisions.

In fact, some employers are miffed that when they do offer a job, certain young applicants simply say that they need the weekend to discuss it with their parents instead of saying that they need time to think about it. Other employers are bamboozled when parents actually want to participate in salary negotiations or that some of them even call to discuss the performance reviews of their children.

Not surprisingly, a helicopter parent is a derogatory term. It was first coined by college administrators and career counselors who witnessed the inability of young adults to act independently because of the enormous influence of their parents. These parents practically “hover” over their brood at every stage of their development and even into adult life, hence the term.

Although they are overprotective, what makes this trend unique is that these people have an unrealistic expectation to vigorously participate in nearly all of the important decisions of their children including academic and employment choices. But it goes beyond kids willing to listen to their parents at such an older age because these young adults are practically incapable of functioning independently as responsible mature adults.

This trend is in stark contrast to a generation of people who lived through the depression and helped fight World War II at home or abroad. Back then, an 18 year old was definitely considered to be a full fledged adult who did not need any babying or protection. In fact, they were expected to be completely responsible for their own decisions and behavior as well as for finding their own livelihood.

However, technology and affluence changed all of that.

Although very little formal research has been done on the helicopter parent phenomenon, certain experts point to the cell phone as the source of this trend. Prior to wireless communication, kids practically were on their own when they were apart from their parents. Today, the cell phone is considered to be the parental umbilical cord in which certain parents can be intimately involved in practically every detail of their child’s life on a day to day basis. Even elementary school kids are now beginning to have sophisticated cell phones.

Of course, wealth has played a big role in this phenomenon. Over a generation ago, kids were limited on what they could do on their free time so they actually behaved as kids, but today’s affluence has changed that. Parents can now afford a vast array of options and extra-curricular activities for their child to participate in. And to get the most value out of these functions, helicopter parents play an extensive role on what their children do in these programs.

In addition, before the emergence of the great middle class, college was considered to be a luxury that the masses could not afford. Even though higher learning is still expensive, it is now within grasp of most of the middle class. Perhaps being so intrusive in their child’s collegiate life is just an extension of what helicopter parents have already done while their children were growing up.

Regrettably, such overbearing parents do not see their behavior as being negative. Nor do they see themselves living vicariously through their offspring. They just enjoy being an active part of their child’s life even if it means making almost all of their decisions for them.

But such an in-depth involvement is stunting the maturation of their children because they are completely unable to function in society without parental assistance. It is understandable that parents want to protect their kids from harm and from making mistakes and as a parent myself; I want my own children to avoid making bad choices in life.

However, what I value most is that my own children will someday be capable of making their own decisions and exercising their own good judgment instead of having someone else making choices for them. I have no intention of abandoning my parental guidance but I feel that it is truly important for my children to become responsible decent adults who are able to function in our society on their own terms.

Overall, helicopter parents need to let their children grow up and pull back from the meddling and interference. 

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