Modern Parenting Is Killing Us
None of us want to helicopter our kids
I remember the first time I dropped my daughter off at the mall with her friends. It wasn’t that long ago. They all had phones with them. They were old enough. They knew to use the buddy system. It was time.
Yet, the pit in my stomach made me realize just how much of a helicopter parent I had been until that point.
It felt almost paralyzing to watch her walk into the mall with her friends. I felt like for sure something horrible would happen. But, guess what? She survived her trip to the mall with her friends. She didn’t get kidnapped, or sexually abused.
Shocker, I know.
Since then, I keep trying to find the balance between permissive parenting and helicopter parenting.
Being a child of the eighties, I roamed pretty freely. I learned how to do mascara at the older girl’s house down the street, and I rode my bike to the corner snow cone stand in the summer with money in hand. I played until the street lights came on, and I walked to my friend’s house in the summer and had sleepovers often.
Part of me longs for that kind of childhood for my kids.
