Today, I'm honored to feature a guest post written by a friend. I'm not naming her or linking to her blog, for reasons that will soon be made clear. Because she works in college admissions, she offers a cautionary tale for those of us who want to avoid staying too involved in our kids' lives long past the point when they should be ready to launch. Although my kids are years from college, I took this as a reminder to evaluate what I'm doing now to encourage independence and confidence in my children. And to be honest, I need to up the ante when it comes to my older kids. This summer, I'm teaching Natalie to do the laundry, and Connor is going to take over vacuuming. And I might just let them run with scissors. Maybe.
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| photo credit: Hugh Kretschmer for TIME |
The one who calls too often, hovers too close, holds too tight.
We all want to be the one who trusts God for every daily thing: for safety and protection, for clarity, for guidance. But we also want to hold on because we hear tell that these days slip like sand.
I’m not a mom yet, but I am a college admissions counselor. I’ve interacted with many of those moms.
The moms who answer emails I send to their child. The moms who fill out their child’s college application (“because she won’t do it if I don’t”). The moms who send me emails, then call, then leave voicemails checking to see if I’ve received their emails…on a Sunday.
The moms who call because they heard about some sick kids on campus and if it’s meningitis, their son isn’t vaccinated. The moms who call because their daughter isn’t picking up her phone and would I go find her in the dorm and make sure she’s okay? The moms who still sit beside their 20-year-old to help him through his homework. The moms who call because their child needs to be on time to the dentist, or the airport, or the chiropractor.
From my vantage point, I get it. You want your child’s application to be flawless so they get accepted. Once they’re here, you want them to be responsible and safe. Any mother would want that for their child.
What comes across to other adults, however, is the message that you are not done raising your child. You may have raised your child to be trustworthy, but in your hovering, you refuse to trust them.
Watching a child wilt under that mom is the most discouraging thing I see.
Because what comes across to the child of that mom is this message: I am not ready for you to grow up. I do not want you to grow up. That wordless guilt burdens these children in college and will one day hinder the relationship they forge with their mothers as grown adults.
Don’t become that mom. Be the one who trusts God instead of controlling the little details (and in the grand scheme, a college application is a little detail). Be the one whose child is confident in their own ability to try on adulthood.
Trust that you have done a good job. By the time your child is 18, you have passed along the essentials, whether you know it or not. They’ll figure out the rest.
Stand back and let your child make a wrong decision. It may be painful to you—and to them—but adulthood isn’t about being shielded.
And for heaven’s sake, stop calling me, worried about your child. They are flourishing marvelously here at college, rooted deeply in the foundation you have laid and discovering all the joys and challenges of that transition to adulthood. They are turning out just great.
You did good, Mom.
I used to work in student advising at the local university. It was astounding what parents expected us to do on behalf of their students. It was nice to have FERPA to use as a barrier between the parents and me. Inevitably the students with the most over-involved parents struggled with the whole college experience. Thanks for writing this.
ReplyDeleteWow. I can't even fathom that there are really moms that do that. Good grief!
ReplyDeleteLove this! So true!
ReplyDeleteI'm sending my first off to college next year, and it is hard to let go...yet, it's the right thing. It's time for him to spread his wings and take what we've taught him and either apply it or not. We've done our part. I'm reminded of a time at the playground some 16 years ago when a boy my sons age was carefully tip toeing to the slide. The mom was a fluster behind him, "Jonny, be careful." My son had already mastered the ladder, the slide~forward and back. Jonny fell and starting howling, but in a way that was not at all appropriate to the injury. The mom, frazzled, looked at me and asked, "How old is your son?" When I realized my son was a month or two younger than hers, I let out a sigh of relief that my parenting was not the hovering type. Not only do mamas like that set their kids up for dependence, but also exhaust themselves, worrying.
ReplyDelete~Kristin
Good point, Kristin. Sometimes, we can see early manifestations of helicopter parenting even in toddlerhood. It's true that our kids need us more when they are young than when they are old. But even then, we need to keep in mind that our goal is independent adults.
DeleteI totally agree. My whole job as a parent is to teach him to be a functioning, hopefully independent and well adjusted adult. If my child reaches 18 and I still don't trust him to be able to live and handle his own life, I will have failed. Yiiiiikes.
ReplyDelete"If my child reaches 18 and I still don't trust him to be able to live and handle his own life, I will have failed."
DeleteI feel the same way, Sue!
I fully appreciate the author's perspective. The things some of those moms have done is truly absurd, and raises so many questions. Why not have your kid make their own appointments? Why not just call or text or email THEM to remind them? Why not play it safe if you are worried and just get the vaccine?
ReplyDeleteStill, I have to say something in defense of these types of moms (which I hope never to become). And I know you know this, but I feel it bears repeating: there are much more flagrant fouls in the parenting arena than helicoptering. And I suspect there are often factors at play that none of us knows about- disabilities, some past event- that cause parents to become extra fearful or overprotective. Nobody sets out to hinder their child's transformation to adulthood. I certainly don't advocate sending an 18-year-old go to college who isn't reasonably independent and willing and able to do the things (s)he once expected Mom to take care of. I'm 26, so I have the most experience with the kids as fellow students, and it's frustrating to feel like you're responsible for managing your life, but some other kid has his parents step in whenever things get hard. Still, I'm surprised to hear that the students in this situation are "the most discouraging" thing someone sees on a college campus. What about students whose guardians don't seem to care at all? Students who waste others' time and money by goofing off for for years? Students who drink too much, who are injured playing sports, who struggle to keep up and juggle school and life, who drop out or give up or are just plain rude, lousy people? Obviously, all of these kinds of students will turn into difficult-to-deal-with adults, and the point of the post is to advise Mamas to relax and avoid that. It's important to say "hey don't let this happen, it's a lot more damaging than you realize," so I hope my words don't come across as combative. I just think that it's also important to give the benefit of the doubt and assume that these moms are doing their best just the same as we are.
I really appreciate your perspective, Erin. I agree that there are more pressing problems amongst college students. It's a first-world problem, eh?
DeleteThat said, I think helicopter parenting can be insidious because it creates an unstable foundation for the child's whole life experience. Adults who don't know how to live independently or who expect others to do things for them become bad spouses, bad parents and bad citizens. I think sometimes, in Western culture, we excuse helicopter parenting because too much love seems like the lesser evil than not enough love. But from my experience, it can be just as deadly as too much food. It's ironic to me that we don't die of starvation in America; we die from obesity.
(And again, not disagreeing with you. I think we're 98% on the same page. Just love to have discussion.)
I'm amazed by how things change. When I was in college in the late 80s/early 90s, I think I talked to my parents MAYBE once a week because it was long distance. It would never occur to them to call the admissions office to check up on me.
ReplyDeleteI'm pretty sure I won't be so helicopter and hovering. I think having a lot of kids helps. Will I have time to micromanage a college kid's life when I will still have toddlers at home? I don't think so...Also, my older kids do laundry, light cooking, and when my oldest recently had a project that required emailing and phoning people in the community, she did the legwork. I hope it taught her she is capable of interacting in a grown-up world, not needing to hide behind my skirt. I was really proud of her.
I so agree, Gretchen. I wonder how much of helicopter parenting is the result of smaller family size today. Who would have had the time to hover when they have 15 kids to raise and a farm to care for amidst the droughts/locusts/prairie fires?
DeleteOf course the kids didn't go to college back then, nor did parents have the ability to keep in touch once the child moved away. But still.
Amen!! I would add that the message these moms are sending to their kids isn't just "I don't want you to grow up," it's also "I don't trust you to take care of your own life." Kids pick up on our lack of trust in them (my oldest is 20) and, believe me, they don't like it.
ReplyDeleteI am a college professor, and one of the strangest, most hilarious thing I ever received from a mom was a note that explained that her son's girlfriend broke up with him the night before a paper was due and that he was so heartbroken that he just couldn't possibly get his paper done on time. She wanted to know if I would give him an extension. Oh brother! Every semester I read that note to my students on the first day of classes and tell them that I never. EVER. want to get a note like that from their mommy. :)
OH MY WORD, Shelly. That is HYSTERICAL. I bet all your students laugh. And a few of them text a reminder home at that very moment. "Never send a letter to any of my college professors. Ever. Thank you. The end."
DeleteThere must be MANY leaps of faith in mothering children...and many rewards when you see your kid do things on their own. I feel sad for the moms who haven't realized that, yet!
ReplyDeleteI experienced these kinds of parents often when I worked in a university's student counseling center. We frequently had to tell parents that because their child was over 18, they did not, in fact, have a right to know what we talked about during their counseling sessions. Unless it was a safety issue, we kept everything confidential. There were definitely situations where the parents needed to be involved, but that was so rare. I think many times the parents' involvement actually kept therapy from being effective. I wonder how much more responsible and productive some kids would be if their parents would just let go a little.
ReplyDeleteMy Moms group has been doing an Andy Stanley study on responsibility this spring, Elizabeth. It's been such a good, eye-opening reminder to teach our kids to handle responsibility for themselves in a healthy way. We do our kids no favors by rescuing them all the time.
DeleteSo true! A good reminder, indeed.
ReplyDeleteReally loved this post. Really don't want to be that type of mom. I want to raise independent little boys who are full of confidence but know that mom and dad are there to help if needed.
ReplyDeleteMothers who smother--I don't want to be one! When my kids were little a dear and much older friend gave me the sage warning: "We raise 'em to let 'em go." And so we do. And so I am, come August. Do I trust my kids, that's an important question. I think the bigger question is do I trust the Lord and the Holy Spirit's good work of sanctification and provision? He is enough for them; He's been more than enough for me, glory to His name!
ReplyDelete