There’s always been something I couldn’t understand. The concept of the Helicopter Mom. They are called that, because like the helicopter that hovers over its target, this mother hovers over her child. They’d hang around at primary schools, worked at every event and would stand in for every sick teacher. At my primary school the one mom was so bad they gave her an office and a job. They made the working mothers lives a misery.
Now my mom was a working mother. She couldn’t be at every event or help out everywhere which is really ok, if not better. She didn’t personally know my teachers or hang out around the school.
And the helicopter moms all turned up their noses at her.
She didn’t form part of the clique and I will always thank her for that. Because she realised something those competitive perfect mommies didn’t: Kids need their space. At primary school you start to wean yourself from your mother, learn to make friends and start to cope on your own. If your mother who you see all the time at home starts hanging around school you never learn how to be independent and cling to her instead. And when you reach high-school where there are parties and sleep overs and events a plenty these kids can’t cope. They panic and eventually stay home which is bad for their social development, or they rebel and end up doing drugs or whatever.
There is nothing wrong with having a good bond with your mother, but like someone once told me that bond is like hair band. It starts small, and tight. Then the more you use it it stretches and becomes more flexible, but the band is still there. That is what a parents bond with their child should be.
So to all parents out there: Think of the children, beware of the hover.
No comments:
Post a Comment