Hovering Helicopter Parents Are Addicted To Meddling, Evidenced By Ridiculous Reddit Thread

shutterstock_121428757

This just in””helicopter parents are as bad as ever, if not worse. I’m fortunate that I haven’t come into contact with that many parents just yet because my young children are still in daycare. In just a few short years, I’ll be one of the playground moms picking them up from school and volunteering for extracurricular activities. I hope you can detect the sarcasm when I say, I can’t wait.

This Reddit parent shared a story that confirmed my worst suspicions about crazy helicopter parents lurking in the shadows:

My 5 year old and 3 year old were at the park. They took their favorite trucks to play it the sand with. Another kid, 6 (I know because I asked his mom) asked to play with my boys and share their dump trucks. They agreed. This kid took both, took over, threw them, and started stomping on them not letting my boys even touch them while his mom looked on and did nothing.

I stepped in, took the trucks, told him while looking at his mom that they were done sharing their trucks and gave them back to my children.

The lady talked to her son and told him that it wasn’t okay not to share and told him to apologize. So he went and said sorry to my boys. They said ”okay” and looked at me. I shook my head and the boys kept playing. The 6 year old wanted the trucks back. I told my boys they didn’t’ have to share if they didn’t want to.

His mom looked at me and said ”my son apologized”.

I said ”that’s great, my boys accepted.”

She said ”well they should share again.”

I looked at her and said ”Lady, just saying your sorry doesn’t mean you get anything back. There is no reason why he won’t do what he did again. So, no, my boys aren’t going to share their trucks with your kid.”

She was pissed. I mean livid pissed. She took her kid and left and I could see her talking to a guy I can only assume is her husband.

I couldn’t identify the Reddit parent as mom or dad, so we’ll call her a mom for the sake of the story.

This very hilarious, detailed account goes on to say that the woman bitched at her husband and sent him over to do her dirty work. The helicopter husband apologized for his wife and his bratty kid. Helicopter Dad told the other mom that they could just pretend to talk about the sharing issue while Helicopter Mom was watching. Overbearing Helicopter Mom eventually gave up, and the family left the park.

There’s so much to say here that I don’t even know where to dive in. My toddler is just getting to the age where he refuses to share and fights with other kids. I think the non-helicopter mom’s reaction in the story is on point. She appeared to get minimally involved in the exchange between the kids. She also didn’t reward the helicopter mom’s mentality that “everything should be fair” for her special snowflake after he was forced to apologize.

I know it won’t be easy, but I’m committed to letting my kids work out their issues on the playground. I’m just waiting for helicopter moms to swoop in and tell me I’m doing it wrong.

(Image: Angela Waye/Shutterstock)

Similar Posts