newswire: 8/14/2020
- A new WSJ headline asks a provocative question: “Has Covid Brought an End to Helicopter Parenting?” With parents’ schedules in disarray, young kids are being left to their own devices a lot more, which means less supervision and often more screen time. (The Wall Street Journal)
- NH: The term helicopter parent has been around since the 1990s. It originally described Boomer adults who monitored every aspect of their children’s lives. In time it was applied to Xer parents as well (though Xers, at the extreme, are also sometimes called snowplow parents.)
- Will COVID-19 end that style of parenting? This journalist thinks so, but I’m not persuaded.
- Never have families been closer together. Parents working from home and kids learning and playing at home means parents and children are in constant contact. Adults don’t have to constantly check in on their kids because they can see them from their kitchen work desk. And the very nature of Covid-19 means that kids aren’t out of the house causing trouble.
- It's true that polls show parents loosening up. A CivicScience survey found that 30% of adults report that their parenting has become more “relaxed” since COVID-19. And a Harris Poll found that almost 50% of parents are both letting their kids stay up later and sleep in more. But these are modest changes and could simply be a result of kids being on out of school and homebound--and devoid of any risky options.
- There is a possibility that, come fall, we may see a rise in “latchkey kids.” This term became popular in the 1980s to describe Xers who came home from school to empty houses. Today, however, if grown-up Xer parents are called back to their offices while schools remain closed, those parents will do everything in their power to get other adults (grandparents, relatives) into their homes to supervise--or get their kids to the home of somebody else they can trust. And, if sometimes they have no alternative but to leave their kids home alone, these Homelanders won't find themselves abandoned like Macaulay Culkin. Through texting, Facetime, and video-monitor networks, the parents will be watching closely everything that goes on. In other words, they will still be helicopter parents.
