ETCETERA
NIGHT CAP
Helicopter Parents
By Harry Kirsbaum
watched coverage of this year's
White House Easter egg roll with
a certain amount of foreboding,
waiting for one of the television cor-
respondents to report Secret Service
snipers firing warning shots at the
helicopter parents who were fighting
over the eggs.
Of course, the national terrorist
threat level hadn't been raised since
the city of Colorado Springs cancelled
its Easter Egg hunt in March for the
same reason, so I guess I should have
kept eating my matzah and chilled
with a nice glass of Magen David.
Growing up in Flint in the 1960s,
there weren't a lot of parents hovering
over their kids in our neighborhood.
Most moms were stay-at-home; the
kids went to school within walking
distance, came home and played
together in the street until the dads
came home from work. Kids settled
their disputes as they arose without
parental interference.
Those lucky enough to have the
athletic skills to play football, baseball
I
and/or basketball were encouraged
to join school teams. Otherwise, you
played in a field, on the street or in a
driveway in street clothes.
Sure, I had a nice fading jump shot
in basketball, as long as you didn't
cover me and gave me the necessary
four seconds to get the shot off, but I
knew early that I sucked at sports.
So, I was a bit startled when a story
ran on 60 Minutes last year on helicop-
ter parents and their children, referred
to as Millennials.
These precocious children joined
teams at an early age, wore expensive
uniforms, used expensive equip-
ment and, no matter how much
they sucked, every member of every
team received the same-sized trophy,
just for showing up. Every child was
special, constantly protected by their
parents, who were involved in every
aspect of their children's lives.
The segment showed human
resource professionals across the
country attending seminars on how to
best handle these incoming gradu-
ates. How to keep them working, keep
them happy and keep them from leav-
ing the company after all that money
was spent to train them. I felt sorry
for some of them, especially the
ones who said that some parents of
these Millennial employees would
contact them to demand salary
increases.
Secret Service snipers at the White House
I'm not a psychologist, but I
Easter egg roll
do understand that the world is
vastly more complex than it was
low people to become self-centered.
almost a half-century ago, and
Is an event worth photographing
helicopter parents hover over their
without the picture-taker's face and
flock to give them a better chance in
upper arm included in the shot?
an increasingly competitive world.
I'm thinking of pitching a television
But they have to pick their battles. An
series to Hollywood about a man who
Easter egg hunt is not a good place
can't escape precocious Millennial
to hover. Contacting a teacher when
teens
no matter where he goes. Driv-
your child's grades are falling is con-
ing his car down the street, he gets
sidered being a good parent. Contact-
cut off by a kid driving and texting.
ing your kid's employer to get him a
Buying a shirt at a store, he pays cash
raise, when your kid is a 22-year-old
to
a Millennial, and receives seven
college graduate, is being a
(fill
dimes and three pennies when the
in your own swear word.)
register is filled with quarters. Sitting
I understand that technology plays
at
a table in a diner, a group of Millen-
a huge role, too. I didn't have a com-
nials
enter and spontaneously burst
puter until the mid-1990s. Millennials
into song — off-key but awesome to
were born in a computer-based world
themselves, of course — and sends
and use them as easily as toasters.
the man running away from the store.
Facebook and other social media al-
I'll call it Flee.
O ffic ia l Wh ite House p ho to
Would you puh-leeze stop hovering?
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