A hugely popular thread on Reddit was prompted by a reader asking what do kids with helicopter parents look like as adults?
The answers are illuminating, but here I must put in a word for the parents being second-guessed. While I am (obviously) in favor of parents giving kids more independence than most do these days, I also understand that we have an entire culture pushing over-protection as the norm. Target sells baby kneepads, schools require waivers for kids to play at the park across the street, lawyers sue when a kid falls off the slide — little is considered “safe enough.” And when you’re a parent in that culture, it is hard to shake the idea that kids are in such constant danger that you’d better be hovering OR ELSE!
So while I found these comments by “helicoptered” young adults moving, I am enraged not at their parents but at a society that has accustomed all of us to seeing almost every aspect of life — what we eat, wear, visit, think and say — through the lens of, “How might this hurt or even traumatize a person, forever?”
With that said, click here to read Let Grow’s piece on the “I was raised by a helicopter parent” thread.
Adults Who Were Raised by Helicopter Parents Speak Out: “We Are Not Okay”
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