What is a Helicopter Mommy and Are You One?
Written By: Bosky Singh, Moms on Maternity Columnist.
Well ladies, have you seen a mother who is always keeping an eagle eye on her kid or always hovering over him/her not leaving them alone?
Or a mother of a teenage kid choosing the classes and professors for him and not letting him make any of the decisions.
Have you come across a friend who at every little problem rushes to the phone to call her parents for advice?
Well in the first two scenarios you just spotted a helicopter mama and in the third scenario, your friend was likely raised by a helicopter parent.
What exactly is helicopter parenting? It’s a term being vastly used these days, and what are its long-term consequences? Helicopter parenting is when either of the parents keeps on hovering on the kids like a helicopter and not letting him or her be. Imagine being under the constant eye of someone even if they are your parents - what must that do to a kid’s psyche?
Every parent wants what's best for their kids. Right? We all want them to be happy, to be safe, to excel at everything but where we go wrong at times is when we take these feelings to some other level and start being over-involved in our kid’s life. Now, remember mamas this over-involvement is not coming from a dark side but concern, care, love, affection. It's also coming from anxiety. Yeah! ANXIETY!!! Parents are worried, anxious about their kids, their future, and they are scared of letting them get hurt. No parent wants their kids to get hurt, or to be disappointed and thus we go out of our way to make things easier for our babies. But in this process we are forgetting the most fundamental thing, ’life is not a bed of roses.’ Failures and disappointments – all of this makes up our lives and if we start preparing our kids about this truth from a young age it will be easier for them to understand and take everything in-stride so they can move past their failures and try to do better the next time. By hovering over them all the time we are stunting their growth emotionally, we are making them handicapped and ill-equipped to face their life ahead.
Now, I would like to talk about a couple of personal experiences I have observed very closely. My 15-year-old nephew is a byproduct of helicopter mothering. She is one of those mothers who firsts talks to the kids she thinks her son could be friends with and then gives him the green light. She is one of those mothers who would go and confront the teacher head-on if they did something her little angel didn’t approve of. She smoothed out everything for him, making things easier for him, giving him stuff even before he asks for it. The result, an overgrown toddler (well a teenager who acts like a toddler) who can't do a thing on his own, he needs his mother for everything and a bit of a spoiled brat who just can't take ‘NO’ for an answer.
Another example is a friend who has a boy around the same age, 15. She too keeps on hovering over her kid all the time. Her teenage boy would come to his mother and say ‘ Mommy I have finished chapter 8th of Biology what subject I should study next and which chapter?’ Both the boys are super intelligent and excel academically thanks to their mothers but in a social setting, they are a bit like awkward wallflowers. They are not able to make any decisions and a cloud of self-doubt is always lingering over their heads. These poor kids never got a chance to develop their social cognitive skills as their ‘moves’ were always made for them by their mothers.
“Real Protection means teaching children to manage on their own and not shielding them from every hazard.”
- Wendy Mogel, (The Blessing of the skinned knee)
You, yourself, may be the result of helicopter parenting and that is perhaps why you may act like a helicopter parent too. We tent to parent like our parents did without even realizing it. Well, mothers more than often I have seen that parents very often take to helicopter parenting when they are trying to overcompensate. Now the reason for overcompensation can be anything… the guilt of missing out on a musical or guilt over something else – anything really. At times parents try to relieve themselves guilt by overcompensating, overindulging in the child’s life without even realizing they may be doing more harm than good.
And maybe you have ample time on your hands and you are putting that into use by overindulging into your kid’s life.
A lot of leading child psychologists maintain the opinion that helicopter parenting handicaps a child and takes away their ability to make decisions and since they are not able to make decisions such kids may suffer from self-doubt or low self-esteem. Imagine if your life is laid out for you, all your chores are done for you and then all of a sudden you have to do things which you have never done in your life or you have to make some decision(s) on your own which you have never done before.
A Quote that is doing the rounds on social media is: ’Yes, I am a helicopter mom, damn you.’
A certain section of our society is taking pride in being a helicopter mother understandably. Why understandably, well cause here we have mothers moving mountains to make it easier for their kids whereas there is a counter style the UNINVOLVED PARENTING STYLE where the parents don’t give a damn about the kids and let them be a kind of extreme opposite to helicopter parenting. Is there a need to discuss what happens if we leave our kids all on their own and don’t get involved in their lives, what kind of adult they are likely going to be?
My answer to the above-mentioned quote is another quote only, ‘I too want to be a helicopter parent but the fuel is expensive.’
That fuel comes at the cost to my child’s self-esteem, his ability to make decisions, his confidence and his overall behavioral development. I don’t think it's worth it. I want him to be fiercely independent and to have self-esteem. I want my little guy to take over the world oozing self-confidence. And that won't be possible if I keep on cosseting him all the time. Yeah! Kids need our undivided love and attention but it doesn't mean we don’t have to cut the cords. Cut those cords, set them free, observe them closely but don’t suffocate them.
I wind up here for now with a beautiful quote I found online, ’A mother's job is to teach her children not to need her anymore. The hardest part of that job is accepting success.’ Yep.
WRITTEN BY:
Bosky Singh is Mom to one boy aged 4. She is a regular columnist for Moms on Maternity.