#9 "Remove Child Before Folding": The Backlash of Helicopter Parents

Is it really necessary, as the title of this post suggests, for strollers to carry the tag "Remove Child Before Folding"? I hardly think so. 

But yes, these sort of labels now run rampant in our society thanks to the overprotective nature of today's parents. At least according to TIME's Nancy Gibbs in her article "The Growing Backlash Against Overparenting" . In this article, she details the multiple ways that parents today define the "helicopter parent;" the hovering, always-present, too-involved mothers (and fathers, although *surprise surprise* they are rarely mentioned). These parents have been known to follow their kids to college and altogether take away the meaning of independence.


"10 is the new 2. We're infantilizing our kids into incompetence," says mother, Lenore Skenazy, who was dubbed " America's Worst Mom" for letting her 9 yr old son ride the subway alone (read her take on her nickname here).  Worrying and keeping our kids from too much is doing more damage then giving them a little freedom to grow up; children grow up to be naive and incompetent because they are not given any responsibility anymore, or any room to grow on their own.

In my opinion, if this new modern parenting is provoking such asinine labels as previously discussed...and discouraging children from going to the park to meet up with friends for a friendly game of pick-up basketball...and encouraging parents to trail their kids to college....   we are going in the wrong direction. It is scary thinking about all the things that could happen to your child--but our parents and grandparents survived without labels informing them to remember to not do anything stupid. They survived days in the park and college all by their lonesome. As noted in the article, crime is actually down compared to previous generations--it is just more available because of the ever-present media; and by that I mean, available everywhere we look, so it seems like a lot. Either way, I don't think helicopter-parenting instills any sort of self-sufficiency or self-confidence or allows the kid to simply be a kid--and grow to be his own person.