The Shift From Helicopter Parents to Helicopter Caregivers

Our generation was often accused of being helicopter parents. We were the creators of “play dates”, we supported the development of organized classes and extra curricular activities, we hovered over our kids and their homework and always needed to know where our kids were and exactly what they were doing any time of the day. The days of just going outside to play unsupervised in many ways ended with us.

In an article entitled, What Is Helicopter Parenting, Anne Dunnewold defined a helicopter parent as someone who "overparented". She went further on to explain,

"It means being involved in a child's life in a way that is overcontrolling, overprotecting and overperfecting, in a way that is in excess of responsible parenting."

So when I read the article published in Time, What I Learned From Spending Almost 2 Months of the Pandemic Living With My Elderly Parents, I couldn’t help but smile.

In the article, the author shares her story of how she spent two months with her elderly parents during the pandemic. She spoke of how she had to declutter their home, schedule their healthcare appointments, fix their technology plus do so many other things for them to eliminate any type of health or physical risk to them.

But what really struck me was that her parents were happy and content with the way things were. All they really wanted to do was sit down and talk with her. They wanted to spend time doing a puzzle and possibly having an occasional drink together. But the author was so intent on getting things organized and safe for her parents that she seemed to completely miss out on this opportunity.

This made me wonder. Have we come full circle? Have we possibly either become ourselves or raised helicopter caregivers?

As we care for our aging parents and as our children slowly step into this role for us, have we developed zero tolerance for any type of risk that now extends to any age?

I have come face to face with this dilemma.

When my father passed, my mother was living alone and quite a far distance away from us. My first instinct was to move her to some type of retirement living community. This way, I rationalized, there would be some immediate support if she needed it. But my mother insisted on continuing to live by herself in her own home. She loves her house, her neighbours and her community. She feels supported and comfortable where she is.

Around this same time all this was happening, I interviewed Dr. Golant, a leading expert and authority on aging in place. Dr. Golant emphasized that we should try and support people’s independence as long as it’s feasibly possible. He shared that we need to be able to accept some level of risk and that more often than not it’s a crisis that will actually instigate a move. And when and if that should happen – that’s what we need to be prepared to respond.

After I spoke with Dr. Golant, I realized that I wasn’t necessarily wanting to move my mother for her safety and well being, it was more to appease my own concerns. I wanted to basically bubble wrap my mother so that I could feel more at ease with her living situation.

As I thought about the advice Dr. Golant shared along with my mother’s situation and this article, I realized that I was potentially turning into a helicopter caregiver. My desire to protect and control the risks to my mother’s life were infiltrating my actions. If I did what I wanted, I wasn’t allowing my mother the independence to choose or decide how she wanted to live her life.

As long as there was no immediate risk or danger to her or others, I needed to respect her choice. And if or when a crisis occurred, we just needed to be prepared with knowing how we would respond.

Afterall, life is just riddled with risks. Our challenge is to be able to accept this not only for ourselves but sometimes also for the people that we care about.