Watching over your child like a helicopter may be frowned on in some parenting circles, but the real sin is frowning on other people’s parenting choices, says Cath Jenkin
“You’re such a helicopter mom. It’s ridiculous. Your child will never learn to stand up for herself.”
It’s great when people try to give you parenting advice, or assume things about the way you raise your children. It’s great because it’s an opportunity to assess how committed you are to the way you do it. For me, it’s only served to reaffirm my commitment to raising my child, my way.
It’s cute how people still tell me to “just get a babysitter”, when my daughter is nothing like a baby anymore. Because we co-parent, I only have my kid every second weekend. Effectively, I only ever have half the fun time with her, so when people invite me out, I check the calendar to see if it’s a “mommy weekend”.
If it is, and the event isn’t suitable for my daughter to tag along to, I don’t go. Also, I don’t want to go – what’s better than hanging out with my awesome kid and watching reruns of Gilmore Girls over a huge bowl of popcorn?
It comes down to priorities and, as I’ve gotten older, I’ve realised that the mates who say “Nah, just get a babysitter so you can come out” aren’t people I want to spend time with anyway. I win, with a slimmer address book and less social pressure to deal with.
I have a BFF who is the mom of my daughter’s BFF. I can, and do, tell her everything. We commiserate over homework and cry over parental concerns. She knows my worst days, and I know hers. But when my daughter made a new friend at school, I quickly learnt how precious this friendship was.
A new friend brings with it a new mom to be friendly with, and this one took it to the 96th degree – scarily so. I’d barely met them and I was suddenly dealing with coffee dates, play dates, sleep over invitations and the like. We don’t do sleepovers, and that’s not because I think everyone is a paedophile. It’s because I wouldn’t send my dog to stay with someone I barely knew, so why would I do it to my kid?
When I politely declined the invitations, it started to annoy me at how much the words “no thank you” were ignored. Eventually, she thought it would “be helpful” to ask me if I had “parenting issues” that prevented my child from going out. You can imagine how well that went down with me. Quite simply, she didn’t respect our way of doing things.
The thing about parent-friends is that you have to have a common ground and, even if the only common ground is that your kids are mates, that’s fine. But when you refuse to respect each other’s lifestyles and choices, well, you’re not a friend anymore.
Thankfully, that situation resolved itself, but not without me seriously questioning my own life choices. We had entirely different parenting styles, and that’s okay. I just didn’t need her attempting to impress hers onto mine.
It always makes me throw my head back and laugh when people question my parenting choices. No, I don’t have to. The only person on the planet I have to explain myself to is my child. It’s the same for you.
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