Are we American parents over-parenting, over-protecting, and hovering too much over our kids? Helicopter parenting does not teach children the confidence they need to become thriving adults. Photo of an osprey hovering over the water via Pixabay.
Are we American parents over-parenting, over-protecting, and hovering too much over our kids? I just read a particularly snarky review in the Los Angeles Times of Bringing Up Bébé, a new book that examines why French parents are “superior” to American parents.
We American moms get a lot of flack.
We don’t wear skinny jeans.
We feel harried.
Our hair is out of place (no, I won’t post a photo of mine right now.)
We can’t have a grown-up conversation without interruption.
Unlike les Françaises, we don’t even drink our lattes without 2-year-old Johnny dipping his dirty finger into the foam and helping himself.
I read an excerpt from the book in the Wall Street Journal. It seems that one of Pamela Druckerman’s many critiques of her own failings as a mother is that she—like most Americans—is guilty of over-parenting her children.
When our 15-year-old babysitter was running late on Tuesday, she called her mom. Her mom drove to her school, picked her up, and then drove her to our house.
It would have taken the babysitter less than ten minutes to walk, a fraction of the time it took her mother to drive her.
Was her mother helping her?
Or was she teaching her daughter that cultivating time management skills and responsibility are irrelevant because Mommy will always be there to bail her out? Was she over-parenting her in a way that made her less responsible and less confident?
Hard to say.
Both of my parents worked until six o’clock when I was growing up, so I had no choice but to walk everywhere. It was a little sad that I did not see them until after sunset most nights, but like every kid in my neighborhood—whether they had working or stay-at-home parents—I walked to and from school. My parents taught me to ask a grown-up for help crossing Center Street if I was worried about crossing myself.
We don’t do that anymore—teach kids to ask strangers for help, let elementary school kids walk to school by themselves, allow kids to be in challenging situations and work their own way out of them.
Yet one of the many reasons my family lives in a small Oregon town is because it’s a safe place, it’s the kind of place where people make eye contact and say hello, where teenagers are friendly (I love that), and where you’re more apt to run into someone you know than into a Lurking Bad Guy.
By not allowing our kids freedom, we infantilize them, make them overly dependent on us, and unsure of their own abilities.
By driving them instead of letting them walk (or walking with them), we contribute to pollution, global warming, and childhood obesity.
I know it’s terrifying to let go.
But I think Pamela Druckerman is onto something.
Helicopter parenting and over-parenting our kids doesn’t help our children. Screenshot from post-gazette.com
Helicopter parenting doesn’t help our children. Neither does over-parenting them.
I believe in being kind and compassionate, I believe in picking up a baby when she cries. I believe in breastfeeding and lots of hugs and exercise and outdoor time and healthy food and quality family time.
I sometimes fail at being the parent I want to be. I can be impatient. I can tend to get hysterical instead of firm when my kids disobey or don’t listen. I get grumpy when my blood sugar is low, I’m overtired, or on a deadline (so, that would be very often these days).
But I strive to be a loving, steady, and solid presence in my children’s lives.
I also believe that when our children are old enough, we have to give them the tools to be confidence and independent and responsible.
And then we parents need to let them make their own mistakes.
What do you think? Have you read Bringing Up Bébé? Do you want to? Are we Americans doing our children a disservice by over-parenting them?
Last updated: May 25, 2018
Jennifer,
well said, my friend! Well said. I have yet to read Druckerman’s book. That said, I’m in her corner. I’ve been frustrated with some of the blogging and coverage of her story, even not having read the book myself yet (and I’d wager a guess that many people talking about it haven’t, and are basing their responses on the Wall Street Journal excerpt and related coverage. Also, I’m sure the WSJ excerpt is more incendiary than the book as a whole, a la the Tiger Mom).
I feel like all anyone is taking from this is “she says French moms are better, which ipso facto means American moms are bad.”
I doubt that’s her case, any more than MY case, as the Mean Mom, is that we’re all wrong. My case, like I suspect hers is (and like you’re saying here) is that we may have taken our eyes off the prize, which is the end game of raising good kids, independent people, grown ups. It’s so easy these days do so much for our kids, that we just … do it. If you can sign up for something, you do it. If you can drive him somewhere, you do. If he fails at something, you fix it. It all feels good and right, but my argument is that it ends up having the opposite effect of what we may say we want, which is to raise our kids to be adults.
One facet of what I gather is Druckerman’s description of French parenting definitely dovetails with mine, and that is that there is an adult world, and a kid world, and I feel as though it’s best for us, and thus best for our kids, if we remain in the adult world, and train our kids up to also be in that world. I need my grown up time, but it’s not selfish; it’s for my self-preservation, yes, but it’s also to show my kids that they can cope with the world without me managing it for them. And, that they can have their own world, without us adults meddling in it, which is something that didn’t happen nearly as much when we were kids, out playing on our own, making up our own social rules, etc.
I think I may have rambled enough!
Stay tuned; I’ll be writing about this myself when my new website/blog launches next week.
Denise
I can’t wait to read your post about this on your new website, Denise! I hope you can come back and post the link.
My friend and colleague who is an amazing writer, Christine Gross-Loh, Ph.D., is writing a book that looks at cross-cultural parenting practices. She just mentioned to me an important point, one that she explores in her book at length and that I was trying to make here as well: What Druckerman has wrong is that ignoring babies when they express their needs as infants does NOT make for independent well-adjusted youngsters.
I remember getting a lot of criticism when my oldest daughter would cry and I would pick her up. Even my mother would say, “Oh, just let her cry. You’re spoiling her.”
Now she’s 12 and she’s very confident and well-adjusted and she has as much independence as she can handle. But we have certain rules that seem to dismay other parents: she may babysit but only if she is responsible for getting there and back. She uses her own money to buy her friends birthday presents (because I believe in recycled gifts and shopping at secondhand stores). She is not allowed to watch a show on the Internet if she has not done her chores. She cooks dinner by herself for the whole family once a week.
I’m not trying to be Mean Mommy. I’m just trying to empower my daughter to feel confident and capable. But, interestingly, some of the same friends and family who were really annoyed about how we “spoiled” our kids as babies now see how confident and independent our firstborn is and come to us for advice.
Which is not to say I’ve got the answers. I don’t. I make such a huge number of parenting mistakes on a daily, I mean hourly, basis that I am learning along with everyone else.
But it’s all certainly interesting food for thought.
I’m kind of torn on this issue. I think what we really need is a balance. I grew up in a home where there were expectations. We couldn’t go play until the house work and school work was done. Sometimes, when we made bad choices there were big consequences for what we did.
On the other hand, there *were* times my parents, especially my mom, bailed us out, saved us. I remember LOTS of late nights while we took care of projects we’d procrastinated until the last week before they were due. We were always expected to be right there with her though, working to finish up no matter how late it was.
I think that balance is what taught me to rely on my parents to be there when I needed them, but to stand on my own and not let them carry me.
I’m 24 now, a college graduate with a 4.0 and I manage a department of 10 employees. I’d say they did a pretty good job raising me. I still call home at least a couple of times a week to check in and know that if I need something they’re there for me.
My parents empowered me on many, many levels. They made plenty of mistakes, some of them serious, but over all they gave me the skills to be an adult. They did this by setting expectations and not rescuing always me from my choices, but still being there when I really needed.
I agree. Like you (and Denise), I believe completely in being there for my kids. But I don’t think that means I need to do everything for them, or everything they want. I’m a single mom with four kids, and for me, one of the good things that’s come of that is that I have to prioritize my parenting; I couldn’t smother each of them if I tried, simply b/c there aren’t enough hours in the day! If I have to take one to a doctor’s appt, another may have to figure out how to get himself to practice, and I think that’s more than OK. I’m also fortunate enough to live in a small, safe, friendly town, and my kids do walk home from school daily. They bike around town, with boundaries that expand with their age and sense of responsibility. And while I may have erred on the side of giving too much of myself to my kids on many occasions in the past, they know — and respect — when I need a break.
I was not an attachment parent; it didn’t feel right TO ME. I had to be scheduled, and I moved both my babies toward a schedule. Actually, thinking back, we moved toward it together. That said, I would never have “let them cry” for fear of spoiling. I just happened to have infants who nursed really well, were satisfied, and then slept, for longer and longer periods. But when they cried, I was all over them (still am, even though they routinely push me away. My kingdom for more cuddles!).
That, as you point out, is radically different from seeking to raise independent kids. In fact (and this is the subject of my book’s chapter 9) it’s only after your baby feels secure that you can let go of them and let them realize how competent they really are. But in starkest terms, you make them feel loved and secure, and then you let them fail, little by little, so that they can grow their own competence but know they can come back to you if need be.
I honestly think that, sometimes, it’s the parents who create the situations in which they say they “need” to helicopter, you know?
Jennifer! I’m so glad to rediscover your writing. I loved your Mothering blog.
I have to say I actually read Bringing up Bebe and found parts of it to be pee in my pants funny (, especially the part where she births her twins (vaginally) in a public french hospital. ) since she’s very much able to see herself from a third party perspective and make it accessible for the reader.
Anyhoo, I think that the excerpt in the WSJ was an attempt to echo the sensation the Tiger Mom book made last year (which I also read and found somewhat terrifying). However, I really think Druckerman’s book is much more insightful and sensitive to both sides of the pond and really more about her own journey as an American raising children in France and all the complications that come with it.
I will say the whole sleeping thing was interesting and something that you might agree with as it’s not at all about letting babies cry it out for long periods of time, it’s about not reacting immediately so as to learn your babies signals and understand what they need and what their cries mean. With my son, who is now ten months, he has an entire language that I’ve learned to decipher in his crying. Is it a cuddle and a nurse he wants or is he just trying to get back to sleep.
Anyhoo, I don’t think the excerpts did the book justice, but they did get people talking about the book which in turn means more copies sold!
I’m not a fan of helicopter, but, at the same time, I see the example of “walking our kids to school” used a lot as helicoptering. I actually don’t think it is. It’s just realistically safe. Helicoptering, to me, is doing their homework for them or even bugging them about doing it. I have, occasionally, allowed my kid to fail at school and get in trouble because it teaches her that actions (and in-actions) have ramifications. I don’t let her watch TV til the homework and chores are done, but I don’t look over her shoulder and check her work and make sure she does it right, either. On the other hand, there are mothers who do this. I know one who won’t let the after school program have her son do his homework there because she wants to do it with him at home. That’s a bit overprotective, I think, and shows a lack of trust in the afterschool program and in her son.
I basically trust my kid (within reason), but I don’t trust car drivers to stop when she’s in the cross walk and I don’t trust pedophiles and the like. So I do walk her to school and probably will until she beats me up and ties me down.
I’m not sure French moms are better (even if i feel proud about this rumour) but what i see in Canada comparing to what i lived in Paris (in my house and others) is that in France we try to help kids becoming better by developing mutual aid within brothers, sisters or friend, and that help them becoming more autonomous. Here in Canada (where it might be different than US) we do everything for the kids, to help them, to explain to them, to do instead of them, forget about “do it yourself”……. i don’t know who is right and who is wrong but i know that we can love them and give them tools for success in their own life, but above all we need to trust in them.
Cathy, I too am Canadian, and I see the exact opposite of what you see. I was raised to learn to do things on my own, or to help others if I can. My mom wouldn’t do things for me if I could do it on my own. She would teach me, then let me do it.
Now that I am an adult, I still the same thing. My friends with kids do what my mom did; teach, then stand back and let them fly. No coddling, no doing their homework, just letting them grow with guidance.
We could allow our children much more freedom and responsibility if the threat of intervention by CPS did not hang over our heads.
It’s a normal nature of parent to be attached to much to their son/daughters. And it is also normal for them to overly look after their child. 🙂
Hem, hem. I brought my kids up in France, albeit 35-40 years ago. I was very much an “American” mother, as opposed to the “French” mother. And, all the neighborhood kids ended up at my house because I organized activities for them. I have not read this book but what I found abhorrent in the French way of raising children was the constant negativism. Fais pas ci, fais pas ca. (Sorry no way to put the accent on those c’s.) Today, my French nieces both have their kids in day care or have a nanny, which was the situation for these nieces when they were small, because their moms worked. I was a stay at home mom, “une mere au foyer.” This was important to me because my mom was very much a career woman. French kids learn not to interrupt a conversation and do not nag the same way as American kids. Often American moms today become slaves to their children. I think that is what this author is hinting at. Will have to get the book out of the library.
PS. Meant to say the nieces work full-time. Also, there was a review of this book today in the New York Times book review.
Helicopter parenting as a phenom is not the exclusive domain of American moms and dads. It does seem a luxury not afforded to every family, some of whom toil long hours away from home just to provide the basic necessities of life like food and shelter.
Don’t be too hard on yourself and thinks that your over parenting your child. After all, parent’s knows best.. 🙂
I read the book and I totally agree with it. I am not American and, therefore, I can recognize these huge differences on parenting. For example, nurseries in my neighborhood do not allow parents to bring cakes with candles to their kids birthday because it might be “dangerous”. Every time my son falls down or has a bump in his head I have to sign a paper at his nursery saying that I won’t make a lawsuit. Also, parents at park always bring snacks to their kids and let’s not even mention the food they take to the beach. You might think that they are going to camp for 3 days. I already given up to having an adult conversation with another adult at the park because moms have to constantly cheer and pay attention to their kid. Another issue is the competition that starts at two years old such as my son goes to math class and piano lessons. I am soooo tired of this. The biggest difference I see just by even reading the comments is that everybody is thinking first on the well being of their kids but they forget the well being of the parents as individuals and as a couple.
Parenting can express in different way, its matter on the attitudes of a parent or on how they raised of their parents at the same time… This book can help to all the parents to provides an appropriate way of discipline to their children…