“Trapped Under the Chopper: 40 Adults Reveal the Dark Truths of Growing Up with Helicopter Parents”
I wish things where different, I really do,.
Image credits: anon
#32
I actually moved to a different country for mostly unrelated reasons when I was in my mid-to-late teens, and that helped to create a sense of distance in our relationship which facilitated its progression. However, there really isn't a way to turn it off; my parent still tries to intervene in almost any situation in which they're given the opportunity, so I just make sure that they don't have any access to any people/phone numbers/whatever which have anything to do with any of my current or known future woes. If that's not possible, and I don't think that there's another reason they'd stay quiet, then I try to avoid mentioning things at all. I'm well into my thirties now so I doubt that they'll change at this point, to be honest. I just try and keep enough artificial distance in the relationship to minimise the number of opportunities they have to intervene in anything.
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#33
I came here from the Soviet Union when I was 7, and my parents were super over-protective and assumed the worst out of every situation, probably due to trauma from what life was like over there. I wasn’t allowed to have a sleep over at any friend’s house. Getting anyone to come over to my house basically required them to have a background check. I never got any privacy, because between my parents and grandparents, someone was home 100% of the time. I wasn’t allowed to go on longer field trips (like the school trip to DC, and an elementary school to Medieval Times). Most school trips I did go on, my mom insisted on chaperoning. I got my first taste of freedom when I got a driver’s license and a car. I could make up little white lies about where I was and driving allowed me to go wherever I wanted. When I got to college, I made sure to live on campus and not at home, despite going to a school in-state. My mom tried calling/stalking me every single day, and I just decided enough was enough. I didn’t answer the phone for 2 months, and even though my mom is still way too helicopter-ish, it has been much better since then. Back at home, since I was a kid, I wasn’t allowed to have a game console, but I was allowed to have basically unlimited use of the computer — so I spent most of my time messing with it, and being on the Internet. I became active on a bunch of web forums, learned how to code, how to use Linux, etc… since I wasn’t allowed to do much in the real world. I ended up majoring in IT, eventually getting a job in technology on a winning Presidential campaign, then at Amazon working on cloud computer, and I now travel the world for this job, so all things considered, it turned out pretty well in the end.
