The Anti-Helicopter Parent’s Plea: Let Kids Play
There's a big problem here: Parents are judged poorly no matter how they oversee their children. You watch over your children and make sure they're safe and supported? You're a helicopter parent. Took your eyes off your child for five seconds and he jumped into a cage with a gorrilla at the zoo? You're a horrible neglectful mother. Spoke to the principal of your kid's school concerning a bully or about putting some padding over the concrete at the playground? You're creating a "safe space" for your child and raising them to be a sissy. Being a parent is a no-win scenario in the eyes of public perception.People always talk about "back in my day" when things were tougher and how that made them resilient. Well, back in those days, kids got impaled on steering wheels sitting in their parents laps while they drove, got skull fractures from falling on playground concrete or teeth knocked out from see-saws, or they committed suicide because school administrators saw bullying as a natural means of letting kids establish a pecking-order. Following science-informed safety measures is too often dismissed as coddling our children.I'm all for letting kids roam and giving them responsibilities. But there's a rational, measured way to provide for such freedom and responsibility. Because if anything bad happens to your child while giving them such freedom, you will face the wrath of social media. I watch time and again as the same people complaining about sissification of our children are also the first to rage against the parents when the news reports on a child coming into any kind of harm. If people would empathize with parents instead of leaping to judgement of them, the world would be a better place.