Control doesn’t always look like control. Sometimes it looks like love. Like care. Like being cared for, involved. So involved that children grow up struggling to carve out their own lives, because they’re still living their parents' lives.
But that’s not parenting. That’s control.
And even when children of helicopter-parents grow up – they understand what's happened, and work to change things, there’s still this invisible sadness. A wish their parents had loved in a healthier way.
But trauma is on the other side – attached to the control. It never leaves, instead it sits beside you. It’s there when you wake up and when you go to sleep. Because you remember what happened. When no one came. When you were left to figure everything out alone, and it hurt like hell.
Helicopter parents fix before their children fall. They tell themselves, they’re just being good parents. But nobody tells you when you’re healing from trauma – that being a parent will bring it all up again, particularly the trauma, the control, the fear.
The world is a scary place. The pain is real. When the helicopter parent tries to control every outcome, they raise children who don’t know how to trust themselves. There are real struggles there.
And that’s not what we’re meant to teach. I'm not one, but I have been raised by two who were. I don’t have all the answers. But my answer to anyone using this style of parenting would be: pause before stepping in. Let your children fall and figure it out – even when it hurts to watch.
Because maybe the most loving thing you can do is to learn to loosen the grip.
