Helicopter Moms

As concepts go, helicopter mothers is less apposite than Mama Grizzlies.

Both describe mothers who are highly protective of their cubs, but only Mama Grizzlies offers a picture that will allow you to understand the concept accurately.

If the concept grasped the phenomenon, helicopter mothers would be hovering over their children like levitating yogis. They would be looking down on them with benign affection, sometimes dropping a lifeline, sometimes descending to earth to help them with a problem.

But that is not what is meant by helicopter mothering. The term refers to hypervigilant mothers who are directly and excessively involved in every aspect of their children's lives.

These mothers do not hover; they have landed, right in the middle of their children's lives.

Helicopter mothers watch television with their children, look through their computer and texting activities, monitor their homework, and organize every aspect of their social lives.

It may appear that these mothers are smothering their children, but they are really protecting them. As some commentators have explained, they often have very good reason for doing so.

To the point where their children are being deprived of the ability to make their own decisions, to take responsibility for their mistakes, and to exercise their freedom.

Their children do not know how to get to school on their own; they do not have the freedom to hang out with friends after school; they do not really have the option of choosing their friends.

No one is criticizing helicopter mothers, any more than anyone is criticizing Mama Grizzlies. Considering the dangers and challenges these children face, it is not surprising-- we would do better to say that it feels normal-- for mothers to be very vigilant and very involved in their children's lives.

It's not optimal, but it may be the best that many mothers can do under trying circumstances.

This does not mean that they like being helicopter mothers, or that they would rather not feel less stressed about the situation.

They would... unfortunately, that is not an immediate option.

So, when Lisa Belkin says that these women are riddled with guilt, anxiety, and determination about their mothering skills, she is identifying an important psychocultural phenomenon. Link here.

Belkin has asked herself the question of how we got to this point, and she was particularly struck by a comment made by one AB in the comments section of her New York Times column. See link above.

I too was struck by AB's brilliant insight. She does a quick cross cultural analysis and explains that helicopter mothering seems more indigenous to heterogeneous American cultures than to homogeneous European cultures. It is, in her view, especially prevalent in the most heterogeneous culture, that of New York City.

Helicopter parenting, she suggests, is the price of social mobility and diversity. It occurs in communities like New York where everyone has landed from somewhere else, where there is very little uniformity of customs and manners and mores.

It is the price of social anomie.

With so many of your child's friends coming from unfamiliar cultural backgrounds, the normal reaction is distrust, especially when you are responsible for protecting someone who is young and vulnerable.

In a homogeneous community, a mother has very likely grown up in a community, knows everyone in it, feels a level of trust, and will normally allow her child more freedom of movement and choice. She will be less concerned if her child is late from school and will rely less on organized activities.

In the absence of a homogeneous community, mothers are more likely to feel the need to get directly involved in every aspect of their children's lives.

In a city like New York, where children grow up in an extremely heterogeneous culture, parents try to find an island of homogeneity by sending their children to private schools.

If you haven't lived in New York you will find it difficult to grasp how wrapped up mothers become in trying to get their children into these schools. The schools provide a superb education within a cultural environment that parents feel they can trust.

The brutality of the vetting process inspires trust, and justifies, in the minds of many parents, the expense of private education.

Some blame this on American competitiveness-- as though there is anything wrong with being competitive-- but the truth, for most helicopter parents in New York, is that everyone wants the best for their children.

And private schools are not only better, they insist on a very strict work ethic, and offer the opportunity for children to engage in fair competition.

At the prices that these schools charge, they cannot indulge the pathological obsession with self-esteem and diversity.

Upper middle class New Yorkers embrace diversity, until it comes to their own children. They happily affirm their commitment to a culture of self-esteem, until it enters their children's classrooms.

Thus, they overcome the stress of helicopter mothering through the private school system.