I pit helicopter parents

The BBQ Pit
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I wonder, in regard to the Scandinavian babies being left outside with exposed faces, but otherwise well-bundled, if there isn’t something to it that maybe isn’t an issue in other countries. If these are breast-fed babies, getting vitamin D may be difficult for them, because it isn’t in breastmilk, so they rely on sun exposure to get it, which on a baby’s face alone, in a place far from the sun, means extended exposure. Babies are born with a reserve of vitamin D, but they still need some exposure, or a supplement. (Formula, at least in the US, has vitamin D.)

I don’t know what people outside the US feed babies when they start eating other foods, but unless it’s fortified, it may not have much vitamin D either.

Now, I’m not saying that people are leaving their babies outside consciously for the purpose of getting their vitamin D, but it may be that babies who get out a lot, and stay out are healthier, and that has not escaped notice, hence the development of a custom that seems odd to us.

In the US, babies usually don’t get vitamin D deficiencies, because the period that they’re bundled up and kept indoors isn’t usually more than three months out of a year, and baby cereals, which most parents start by six months at the latest, have vitamin D, although in the last decade, there have been some reports of vitamin D deficiencies in babies who are breastfed, and then have sunscreen slathered on any time they are outside, because the PSAs about sunscreen on children have been so successful.

My son was breastfed, but I couldn’t quite keep up with him for the first few weeks, and he had trouble getting a good latch right away, so sometimes I had to pump and bottle-feed him breastmilk, the result of which was that he got some formula supplements-- about 4 oz. a day for his first six weeks. Then, he started eating a little cereal at four months, which was early, but he had a great desire to eat something, as evidenced by his attempts to try to take food off our plates and put it in his mouth, and he was really big for his age, so his doctor thought it would be OK. Anyway, it kept him from needing vitamin D supplements, even though he was a winter baby.

62

…cracked me right up.

63

I was genuinely curious what my CPS worker wife thought about both of these cases (in which the women got arrested).

She said that leaving kids unattended depends on the independence of the child. Does the child know how to get help in an emergency? Knows where mom is and can contact her? Knows who to answer the door to? These factors depend on whether the mother is being negligent.

She mentioned that in California, leaving your children sleeping in your car overnight while you work a graveyard shift is a no-no. However, having your child in a playground during the day, when the child knows where mom is and both mom and co workers are aware of where the kid is can be acceptible so long as its not an ongoing thing.

64

The age of the child is relevant as well, because, if you think about it, if you see an adult hauling a screaming, kicking 5-year-old out of a park, you are most likely to assume you are seeing a parent dealing with a tantrum, while if you see an adult dragging a kicking, screaming 10-year-old, you are more likely to wonder if something suspicious is up, because that isn’t age appropriate behavior for that kid, although you may try to rationalize it in your head by thinking that maybe the kid has a developmental problem, or something-- but you still might make some mental notes of the scene, and try to make out what the kid is saying-- if you hear “Help me!” you might intervene. If you see an adult trying to drag what appears to be a 15-year-old who is kicking and screaming out of a park, you are very likely either to intervene or call 911.

For that reason, a small child, even one who is very savvy about not talking to strangers, and soforth, is less safe.

65

I live in helicopter mom central here in the NJ suburbs and it drives me crazy. I think half of my neighbors are literally going to go to attend college and job interviews with their kids one day. Many are stay at home moms who don’t go back to work even after the kids are in school full time. They know the names of all the paras in the schools. They shuttle their children from activity to activity afterschool and on weekends. They have detailed opinions about each elementary school teacher and our local children’s librarian. Half them nearly fainted when the kids were taken to the Museum of Natural History in NYC and the bus door accidentally opened.

I am a native New Yorker. I think my neighbors would literally faint if they knew half the stuff I did as a kid. At ten I watched my six year old brother for hours on end. At eleven I took the subway by myself to visit a friend after school. At twelve I went to the local ice skating rink without a single second of adult supervision. The summer I was fifteen my parents went to Europe for three weeks and left me alone with my grandmother. I spend just about every day in Manhattan having the time of my life attending free plays and going to museums. I got home late every single night and my grandmother really didn’t care.

Meanwhile the neighbors call me to chide me because my eleven year old occasionally walks down the street and then across a busy street to visit a friend of hers. They think I’m crazy because I take the bus all the time into the city with my girls.

At some point you have to let go. That some point needs to be before the child is taller than you are and taking calc classes.

66

Agreed. Our job is to raise fully functional adults.

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The age of the child is also a factor for CPS. But primarily they will try to figure out if the child is capable of making important decisions (knowing where their parents currently are, knowing not to go into the medicine cabinet/play with the stove/etc, knowing to not answer the door to strangers and instead talk through the door asking what they want). This can vary on the maturity level of the child; there are some precocious 6 year olds that can be left alone for hours at a time safely (as many Dopers have mentioned in personal anecdotes) while there are teenagers too stupid to be left unsupervised lest they burn the house down or something.

People often think that CPS is jumping to the same conclusions that the busybody neighbor that snitched on their kids is making, but that is untrue. CPS follows policies mandated by the state along with the local penal code. In my wife’s agency, the majority of referrals do not require any intervention. But for those that do, it more often than not reveals systemic abuse or neglect.

While people like to talk about how much freer kids were in the past, I bet a lot more abuse and neglect went on and nobody did anything about it. Sure it seems like a helicopter parent to worry about some unattended kid in a bus depot, but how are you 100% certain some abusive parent didn’t just abandon them there? These days abusive and neglectful parents are much more likely to be identified and punished than in the past.

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Yeah, I think this is probably the case. The tendency to cast the Good Old Days in a rosy light may be glossing over some genuine problems that existed then.

I have a hypothetical I’d like to ask for feedback about:

Say you have an eight-year-old child (boy or girl; doesn’t matter).

If the 15-year-old boy who lives next door volunteers to babysit your kid, is it “helicopter parenting” to do some checking, first, before letting the teen be alone with your child?

In other words, should your reaction be *‘hooray, a babysitter right next door; it would be rude and insulting to check up on this kid…the family seems nice and the kid seems nice, so odds are this is perfectly fine’ *—?

Or should you put in some effort to talk to the teen; talk to his parents; ask if he’s watched other kids, and if so could you have contact numbers for the parents of those kids; take the time to set up babysitting situations in which the two won’t be alone (such as specifying that the two of them should take a public bus to a public park, museum, theater, or other venue); and even pop in for a surprise visit during the agreed-upon babysitting interval…?

Is doing any or all of those things proof of being a Helicopter parent?

69

When I did babysitting, which was from about 1979-1988, people who asked me to sit were mostly people who either got my name from other parents I’d sat for, or knew my parents or my aunt and uncle from work, or else knew me from synagogue. A few got my name from their usual babysitter-- that is, if my good friend was their usual sitter, and she couldn’t make it one night, she would give names of friends of hers who also did babysitting. I don’t know whether the parents checked up on me by talking to other parents I’d worked for, or the parents of my friend, but it wouldn’t surprise me.

On a couple of occasions, parents asked to meet me first; they asked me about my experience, and watched me interact with their children. These were generally people who had babies or toddlers who were too young to give their parents first-hand reports of what happened in their absence.

Also, I used to have a neighborhood paper route, so families who lived within a few blocks all knew me as the paper girl. I know there’s no relationship between delivering papers and not being a child molester, but I think what people were really concerned with was “Will she show up on time? Does she have a good sense of responsibility? Is she polite, and does she seem to have common sense?” They could gauge that a bit from a couple of years of delivering their papers.

So no, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to do some of those things-- I wouldn’t pop in unexpectedly when he’s sitting, but I might ask him to come over and talk to me a little first, and see if my son likes him. I’d also want to talk to other parents who have used him as a sitter, and know a little about his experience.

I don’t think it’s odd that a boy would want to babysit, if that’s your real question. My brother and I had one sitter who was a boy, about 15, and we liked him. It’s a good way for teens to make money in a way that fits in with their school schedule, and without being tied to a formal employer-- like they would if they worked at McDonald’s, or something, where they are pretty much a slave to the manager’s schedule. And you can do your homework after the kids go to bed.

70

Thanks for your entire response; I tend to feel that the parents who did the kind of checking you describe were not being overly-protective, but instead reasonably prudent.

As for the “boy” question–I do think that it’s wrong to simply assume that a 15-year-old boy who volunteers to babysit an 8-year-old is up to something other than what he’s disclosing. But on the other hand, it seems irresponsible to go in the other direction and say 'it’s prejudice to assume a teen boy is up to something–to prove I’m not prejudiced, I won’t do any checking–I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt.’ (We humans are all pretty good at couching our decisions in terms that make us sound good!)

This topic came up on another forum I frequent, and many were making the ‘you shouldn’t be so quick to label teen boys; checking up shows a lack of trust’ argument. The context was a father who apparently did NO checking over a period of three years of leaving his little son alone with the teen boy next door; people were defending the father’s seeming lack of curiosity over three years of what turned out to be sexual molestation. The argument was ‘there’s no way he could have known.’

Of course the whole topic of ‘what parents can be expected to be aware of’ is a highly emotional one–and more to the point, isn’t completely on-topic in this thread. But I do appreciate the feedback on the more narrow question I raised.

71

Helicopter parents don’t let the 15 year old boy babysit at all - not even with references. The helicopter parent I know best - her daughter is 14 and has never had a sitter - she’s stayed with family - and that has happened rarely - or with good (adult) friends - when they need a sitter. Which they almost never need. And at 14, I still don’t drop her off if she is with my daughter for the day if her mother isn’t home - she comes home with me and her mother picks her up.

For reference, I started babysitting toddlers at eleven, and my kids were latchkey kids and home alone for a few hours at nine.

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May is not “winter” in NYC.

Normal daytime temp for May is in the high 60’s to the low 70’s. I remember days in May that have been close to 90 degrees.

74

You’re probably right (and I appreciate the feedback on my question).

75

To whom it may constern:

Here’s another essay on the subject that I just spotted.

Why are so many parents being arrested?, Michael Brendan Dougherty, The Week, July 21, 2014.

Sub-headline: The communities that used to assist them are gone. So we call the cops instead.

A few excerpts gives the TL;DR:

76

interesting and scary - we need community if the children are going to be raised right and yet we don’t seem to have it anymore. :frowning:

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One of the things I’ve heard a lot from other parents is that “babysitters” need to be old enough to drive. And none of that 16 year old just got a license thing - no provisional licenses - they’ll have MY kids in the car. They need to have been driving for several years. The reason is “what if they need to get my kids to a doctor?”

Now, in my mind, anything that is so urgent that I’d need to drive my kids to the doctor for no notice on is something that 911 and an ambulance will handle for a babysitter. And maybe a 15 year old babysitter (or a 12 year old one) is not very well equipped to handle the insurance/admittance nightmare - but I suspect that the emergency room would get my kids treated and I’d be at the hospital with good information (after all, the sitter would have my cell phone number), within a reasonable amount of time.

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That all sounds fair; the ‘must be able to drive with a regular license’ requirement does seem a bit excessive.

By the way…Would the very fact that you’ve thought this through open you to a criticism of being copter-y? Not in my opinion—I’m not saying that by any means. But you know how us humans love to label each other…:stuck_out_tongue: And some labelers seem to think that anything short of leaving the kids to fend for themselves on the open range counts as “helicopter-parenting.”

79

http://m.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/07/this-widows-4-kids-were-taken-because-she-left-them-home-alone/374514/#disqus_thread

The woman in that story really sugar coated her situation. She is not being fully honest about the underlying issues that were also happening in the family.

-The woman had many opportunities to demonstrate that the safety threat was no longer present. During court proceedings mom had an attorney present and could present evidence to prove her 4 kids were safe being left home alone for several hours. The county has to provide counsel for the parents if they can’t afford.

-Parents have 12 months of reunification services. The process would not have taken two years.

-It is not against the law to leave your kids at home alone, nor will it automatically get your kids taken away. If the kids know where you are , how to contact you, what to do in an emergency, access to food, and common safety knowledge (don’t play with the stove, etc) then no further action will be taken.

80

I’ve thought this through because I’ve spent a lot of time reading about the wrapped in cotton child debate. I used to follow free range mom.