Did your parent(s) consider it their responsibility to keep you entertained?

[ThelmaLou]

@RTFirefly

The other night, we were going down a familiar path that we hadn’t been down in a while, and there was a place where a new path that deer had made angled off our path, so he decided he wanted to follow the deer path, and led the way, pointing out the deer tracks along the way. You can’t beat moments like that.

Awww…that’s so cool.

[HoneyBadgerDC]

I never realized how much my son and daughter enjoyed me taking them out to catch lizards and frogs and snakes until they started having children and wanting me to take thier kids out critter hunting. Seems like that is some of thier fondest memories.

[MandaJo]

I was thinking about this thread this morning. My son is not-quite-not-quite two, and insofar as he has any narrative awareness at all, I bet he thinks mom takes him to the park every morning and lets him run around all day doing whatever he wants, only randomly appearing to make a suggestion or yank him back when he crosses some arbitrary line.

My point of view is that the park visit is a small part of a longer walk/shop/park excursion cycle. He spends 60-70 minutes in the park (I time it, because I want to leave after 30, but think he should have more.) He’s always, always, always in line of sight, and when he leaves the playground–which is most of the time–I am usually about three feet behind him at all times, leaping forward to stop him/remind him when he gets to close to the street or the creek or the pond (depending on the park), or occasionally to distract him away from something (like an ongoing soccer game I don’t want him to wander into). He really doesn’t see me, because he’s looking outward. He thinks he’s climbing ladders without a net, But I’m looking at him. Obviously, two is not six is not twelve is not fifteen, but I suspect this pattern will continue, and is pretty common.

[Cat_Whisperer]

@WhyNot

<snip>The teen years of many helicopter families really don’t look all that bad…it’s the young adult years which can be scary, when the kid should have formed self sufficiency and independence and never did, and their parents are exhausted.

I see the young adults who have been raised by helicopter parents, and they’re just like these marshmallow, tender, unformed people - they don’t seem to have any grasp of what life is really like, and don’t seem to have any skills for dealing with it. I guess they’ll eventually develop those skills, but man, how much easier would it have been to have developed life skills at the appropriate ages?

[jabiru]

@ThelmaLou

Thanks for these replies. It’s kind of what I thought.

I’m also curious about the experiences of people who live or grew up outside the USA?

59 and I grew up in the suburbs of Sydney, Australia. No way in hell did my parents keep me entertained, nor did they (or I) ever consider that they should. Apart from family gatherings, where there were always numerous cousins (I wonder what happened to them all?) we pretty much kept apart.

My mother worked, which was rare in the '50s and '60s so she spent the weekends catching up with housework while I played cricket in the street or - oh happy day! - built a cubby with a friend whose family had just had a new refrigerator or washing machine delivered and we inherited the carton it came in.