The “Kindest” Chains

The real nuisance (yes, nuisance) of helicopter parenting lies in the gaslighting they often deploy on their children.

I take no pleasure in criticizing parents or respected elders. Yet, there are countless moments in the lives of their children, and even of adults, where they have confided in their parents and expected them to respond in a certain way. These children are often well aware of the risks and fully prepared to face them.

The gaslighting begins when these helicopter parents override the reasonable requests or choices of their adult children. The world rarely sees, or even believes, the trust, confidence, sensitivity, and consideration that some children extend toward their parents.

What society has unfortunately normalized, with only a few exceptions facing token reprimands, is the parents’ intrusive behavior masked as care. I am not talking about insecurity. I am referring to that attitude of “If I am doing something for you, it is for your own good.” This becomes an exhausting struggle for those children who have already proven their capability in the very fields where they now wish to pursue their own ventures.

Yes, the world is becoming more difficult and unpredictable. But if one still feels the need to helicopter-parent such children, then what was the point of dedicating one’s entire life to raising them? What good has come from all the priceless education if the end result is to treat your children as naïve for life? What good has come from the emotional support offered, if when the child wishes to be strong, you question the soundness of that strength? What good have all the prayers done if, after seeking your blessings and your faith, your child faces resistance to their own choices? What good can come from a child’s conscious effort to be wise and good when that goodness is always overshadowed by parental anxiety and irritation?

This is a serious problem, one that will grow even more vicious as the world continues to descend into chaos. The worst affected will be those children who truly possess the ability to discern between the real good and the real bad, not through hearsay but through reflective and contemplative minds.

I call them the Ekalavya children. Like Ekalavya, they have given their proverbial thumbs to the very people they respected the most. And they will suffer the most. Their genuine outbursts will be dismissed and lumped together with the noise created by those who have proved nothing, yet pose as “revolutionaries” among equally deluded peers.

I do not know the way out for these Ekalavya children, who will live in an eternal dilemma and drift into a paralysis of action, while their parents mistake that paralysis for obedience.