And this is how people justify helicoptering:
I’m a helicopter parent not because I’m controlling, but because there’s just not a lot of room for my kids to fail. If this were the 1960s, when kids could goof off and get bad grades without grave economic consequences, then sure. They could be self-motivated and self-actualized; they could find themselves in Tibet for a year, and we’d be smiling our benevolent smiles from our fixer-upper Victorian front porches as they ambled home from their adventures. But now, if they don’t get into a good college—or worse, start college and don’t finish—they’ve just got a ton of debt they can’t discharge and no job prospects.
Obviously, this is all a heap of total and complete idiocy. The author isn’t even trying to sound credible.
There is not an instance of abuse and exploitation that doesn’t justify itself as being perpetrated solely for the benefit of the abused. This tells us that abusers are very well aware of the damage they are causing. They are setting a trap for their victims when any attempt at liberation turns the victims into ungrateful, thankless creatures. There are few weapons in the abusers’ hands that are stronger than their insistence on receiving gratitude for the abuse they inflicted.
Physical and emotional abuse don’t differ all that much in this sense. I know a woman who used to be beaten into a bloody pulp by her mother on regular occasions. Every time after a beating, she would have to apologize to Mommy for forcing her to beat the daughter for her own good and tiring out her hand while delivering the beatings.
Instead of turning into happy, fulfilled, self-assured over-achievers, however, children of helicoptering, controlling parents end up paying for the damage caused to them by the parental rage (and the need to control other people is just that, rage) by depression, anxiety, eating disorders, addiction. This is the happy, joyous future towards which controlling parents guide their miserable, scared children.
Clarissa's Blog 
Uhh. Helicopter parents are covert narcissists. It’s always about them, never about the kid. But they just want to heeeeelp. And they just want the beeeeeeest for you. And they sacrificed their liiiiiiiiiiife for you. Because they are so gooooooooooood people. And the world is such a haaaaaaaaard place to the incompetent, stupid kid, who never can be as goooooooooood as them. I also had a mother like this. No contact with the harpy is the best and cheapest therapy. Since then I feel myself like a human being.
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“But they just want to heeeeelp. And they just want the beeeeeeest for you. And they sacrificed their liiiiiiiiiiife for you. Because they are so gooooooooooood people. And the world is such a haaaaaaaaard place to the incompetent, stupid kid, who never can be as goooooooooood as them.”
– Exactly, exactly. Whenever anybody starts saying that they sacrificed XYZ (let alone their life) to you, that’s time to leave.
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Yes. And the other case when someone starts to brag about how such a good person they are.
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True story: my mother went yo confession and shared with the priest that her greatest sin is being too kind and nice.
I never thought I could have so much compassion for a priest.
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That was her greatest sin? I don’t dare even imagine the other ones. Maybe her too advanced self-awareness that made her make such a believable confession? 😀
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Helicopter parenting is an attack on the children and it is stifling.
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What on earth do you mean by helicoptering? I thought at first you were talking about people taking their kids to school by helicopter, but that doesn’t seem to fit.
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These are, for instance, the parents who would drag their 20-year-old children into my office to yell at them and me because the “children” were not getting the highest grades.
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Hmm, why is it called “helicoptering”? I’ve encountered parents who have behaved like that, but I’ve never heard it called “helicoptering”
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It’s an American thing. They hover over the children’s heads like helicopters, making deafening noise.
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Ah, now I get it. Something like this, perhaps? DELUSIONAL PARENT DISORDER (DPD) IN YOUTH SPORTS — Layups & Rebounds
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I moved thousands of miles, crossed an ocean, and migrated to a new country to get away from my smother mother (helicoptering is too kind for what she does), and it still doesn’t keep her 100% at bay. One time, a small explosion happened at my school while I was nearby, I casually mentioned it to my mom during a conversation, then, a day later, I got a call from my school saying that a sobbing woman claiming to be my mother had called them demanding to know what they were going to do about the explosion and the potential damage it caused me.
I now have a list of pre-approved topics to discuss with my mom when she phones; it’s mainly limited to my grades, and I had to slash grad school off the list because she went into hysterics at the thought of me going to a school in Toronto or Montreal, since they were too far away for her to “conveniently” visit me.
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“I now have a list of pre-approved topics to discuss with my mom when she phones”
– That’s a good approach. Sporadic superficial short – this is the winning slogan for communication with such people.
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Smother mother 😀
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Instead of being a helicopter parent, what she needs to do is teach her kids financial responsibility, how to manage choices, and how to plan ahead. My own parents weren’t good at this, and I made a lot of mistakes as an adult so I made an effort to help my kids learn these skills, which seems to have worked pretty well.
Kids will fail at something, sometime; by allowing them to fail early,they know what that’s like; with a little help, they learn to regroup, bounce back and make amends or changes so they don’t continue to make the same mistakes. Also, a failure at age 12 or 14 or even 16 generally has fewer consequences than a failure at age 20 or 30.
By making her kids’ choices for them, she will ensure that they won’t know how to go on when they are adults.
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What a brilliant comment! Thank you, Fred!
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Thanks! Parenting was the hardest and most rewarding thing I think I’ve ever done..
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Your children were very lucky.
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In your experience, who is likely to have helicopter parents among your students?
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My students come from a very different social class. And good for them.
These crazy stories about helicoptering parents are all back from Yale.
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So you don’t come across helicopter parents at your university?
That excerpted paragraph is this catalog fantasy. I fully expected her to be wearing a Fair Isle sweater and sipping pumpkin spice coffee at the end. Who fantasizes about the 1960s being the last era of gentleman Cs and “finding oneself”?
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I don’t meet students’ parents at all. Many of my students are parents themselves. 🙂
And the fantasies about the wonderful 60s are driving me nuts, too.
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I have one student who has helicopter parents and my conclusion has been that what they are actually teaching her is to be overbearing. You do have to be a good advocate on your own behalf to get through FA bureaucracy at my school, a very good advocate, and many students just aren’t that confident. But, teaching to be own advocate is far better than helicoptering.
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I gave a description of the term to one of my Japanese clients. She said she knew “helicopter” but didn’t understand my meaning, so I made a helicopter noise.
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I no longer has any interest at all in this infantalized society. Not until it grows up.
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Me too. But when it happens I will be at least 5000 years old.
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