The Sharp Blade of the Helicopter Parent

Although, I do not think this was a deliberate parenting technique my parents used, unless clueless-immigrant-parent-so-we-have-to-let-our-child-decide is a specific skill, it was one of the greatest gifts they bestowed upon me.

It’s the gift every parent needs to give their child: the ability to make decisions, suffering the consequences or enjoying the positive outcome of their judgment calls. Because for the most part, when a child makes choices in his life, it is rarely of monumental importance in the greater scheme of things, although it may certainly seem like it to the child. But those determinations, with the built-in lessons they wield, set the foundation for the art of decision-making, for choice-making, that will serve well into adulthood when the choices most certainly may be life altering, may be earth-shattering.

This article is not about coping with bad choices, because part of life is to cope with stuff that doesn’t necessarily go the way we want them to. This article is not even about learning to make good choices, because that’s kind of ridiculous to assume that will always occur even with the most brilliant adults. Is there anybody who goes about making bad choices on purpose? Of course not. Rather, this article is about how it’s okay to go ahead and make decisions knowing not all of them with have perfect outcomes; it’s about how we need to build this skill from childhood on, to take risks, to feel the pain of a decision that turns out badly. It’s to practice exercising choices so that we can also feel the charge, the pleasure of a decision that turns out great. It’s about accepting responsibility for decisions and learning from mistakes; but mostly, it’s about the courage it takes to make a decision.

It’s about the helicopter parent who needs to land somewhere far enough so that his kid can breathe, but not too far away that his kid feels abandoned and lost with too much adult responsibility all at once.

Here are the things my parents let me decide for myself:

• (Age 6) If, when, and how I wanted to do my homework (I completed it, was responsible to have it signed, and asked for help from others when I didn’t know how to do it—not my parents because they did not know English or the American system enough to help)
• (Age 7) What school supplies I need and how to budget myself so that I could splurge on some stuff (a cool pencil case) and be stingy on other things (dollar paper because it was recycled and looked somewhat gray and unappetizing)
• (Age 9+) Which sneakers I wanted for the Y and camp (they always hurt my feet until they were broken in, and there was nobody to help me stop the bleeding or complain to the store manager)
• (Age 10+) How to spend or save my Chanukah and birthday money (open a bank account, lend money to my cousin so she could buy her brother a present)
• (Age 12) Change schools for eighth grade or stay put? (I changed schools—fabulous decision)
• (Age 14) Which camp I wanted to attend (I had to call to get the registration forms, call for the interview, negotiate about job and salary)
• (Age 17) Which seminary I wanted to attend (I had to register, send in the forms, keep track of when my interview was scheduled, and figure out where to apply again when I was rejected, including setting up a dirah; when I was accepted in August, decide to go with original seminary, or second choice)

I must confess that my choices were not always the correct ones. The independence with homework meant that when I got into trouble and had to bring in a signed a note from my parents, I was able to engage in deceit. Something like telling my mother sign her name at the bottom of an empty paper, intimating that this was a homework sheet I would eventually do, and then filling in the empty lines with, “I am aware that Mindy misbehaved in school today and she will never do it again (ha!),” and there was my mother’s signature at the bottom of the note. No teacher would argue with that, would they? No, they didn’t.

My new sneakers always made the back of my heels bloody and I felt frustrated and angry that nobody was there to make sure I was taken care of properly. But I cannot say that experience did not do me good: as a mother, I made sure that when my children bought their shoes (on their own), they would have the tools to speak to the salesman to ensure their comfort.

But I still enjoy the memories of opening my own bank account (I’m not sure where my parents were!), enjoying the sweet taste of those jumbo ice pops bought with money I earned selling potato chips in school (I’m not sure where my fifth grade teacher was!), and the relief of changing schools in eighth grade.

I won’t lie and tell you that when my child became ill, making a health decisions about his health care didn’t nearly paralyze me with fear of making the wrong decision, because it did. But I do know that a long history of living with my choices toughened me up so that I overcame that paralysis very quickly, even as I watched other families torn apart with indecisiveness, regret, and recrimination.

And it was in the very places that my parents did not let me make decision for myself that I remain hopeless and helpless to do so effectively, and with confidence, so many years later. So we still laugh that I call my mother before every simcha asking her what I should wear, and it seems a bit ridiculous that I won’t buy a wig without major consultation with all the females of my family. But that is why when my baby was a week old before Shavuous, my ten year old daughter was sent to buy him a Shavuous outfit, which she did with confidence and aplomb, basking in the pleasure of showing off her little brother with the outfit she had chosen. My friends who met her in the store that day were both amused and horrified.

But today, I am the one who takes extreme pleasure with how my daughter, now an adult, is able to effortlessly buy clothing and wigs, without a single phone call to anyone else (emailing pictures is just part of the fun, not the fear!) and I watch her allow her own three year child the freedom to practice decision making in the same way I had done with her.

So here is how I allowed my children to practice making decisions:

• what they want for breakfast each morning (cereal was not an option!)
• take responsibility for their own homework, if and when they chose to do it, but with the understanding that I would sign only in the evening and never after bedtime or in the morning
• playing in the puddles and living with the consequences of wet sneakers all day
• baking in the kitchen on the condition they would clean up spotlessly (yeah, right!)
• allowing them the choice of either babysitting the the little ones as a job and receiving payment, or have a babysitter come to the house to babysit, leaving them free for the night
• encouraging them to think about their frumkeit, their commitment to Yiddishkeit and/or chassidus, the why’s and why-not’s of their schools, home, and seminary/yeshiva
• trusting them with decision making away from home; in camp, at seminary or yeshiva, or simply at their friend’s home where the video machine and Gameboy (in the olden days, obviously!) were in plain sight and within reach…

I remember asking my son what was the worst decision he made as a child, and he laughed as he remembered going to the grocery store, choosing an assortment of nosh that he knew we, his parents, would never allow, and putting what he perceived as an enormous amount of money on the bill (over $30!) knowing we would never realize. “Ma, When I took the nosh to cheder with me and shared it with all my friends, I felt so guilty that I could never do it again!”

It’s important for us to allow our children their decision making. To allow for mistakes, for misbehavior, to allow for stuff that can go wrong. How terrible really is it if my son wanted a pair of shoes that we knew would not last the month, and it didn’t, and he had to live with the outcome of his bad decision-making and wear those shredded shoes all zman, until his father had pity on him and went to buy him a new pair? It served its purpose as all his shoes had been as practical as we would have liked since then.

This concept seems scary to many parents.

A parent asks, How on earth do you expect me to allow my child to choose his camp, her friends, whether or not to play outside or do homework, to plan the guest menu for yom tov, to attend the class Shabbaton or not, when to put on eyeliner for the first time, to buy a piece of jewelry or clothing, to choose her reading material, to decide who to invite for a sleep over, whether or not to put on tights during the summer, when to look for a job, how to earn or spend her own money?

I can only say that if you allow your child to experiment, to experience failure and success in the small risks of childhood, he will be better equipped to deal with the bigger risks of adulthood.

Shelter him too much and you cripple him.

How terrible is it really when a child insists on a certain friend, and when that friend hurts him as you knew it would happen, your child is heartbroken? Pretty good, as a matter of fact. Good practice for when he must choose chavrusos, dirah-mates, and a shidduch…

It’s why I find myself totally not worrying how my children will survive in the adult world of being parents, making parnassah and providing for their own children, choosing where to live, choosing how to live, and navigating the treacherous course of modern life with all its pitfalls and dangers.

It is when our children have sufficient practice in childhood to exercise their freedom of choice, that adult life becomes almost child’s play.

Be the helicopter parent who has landed on the runway, and follows closely behind the child, not too close to clip her with the circling blades, but not too far behind that should the child need to jump inside the helicopter for safety, you are there.

Originally published in Binah Magazine