Soon hundreds of young people will be knocking on the doors of the university to start their tertiary education. For many of them this will be the beginning of adulthood – a time that will define their future prospects in their chosen careers. Ironically this is the time when most parents are more anxious than their own children as they learn to fly the nest.
In Malta the beginning of adulthood of young people is still not so traumatic for parents. Locally most young people still live with their families when they start their university life. But this is changing. Increasingly youngsters prefer to live on their own as they grow older much to the concern of their parents, especially their mothers. We are a matriarchal society and mothers still rule the roost.
But even in more liberal societies, where it is taken for granted that most young people live away from home when they join university, sociologists have coined the term ‘helicopter parents’ – parents who hover over their children to make sure that they do not get into in any trouble, thereby risking compromising their transition to adulthood.
US professor Laura Hamilton gives some advice to hovering parents in her new book Parenting to a Degree. She argues that parents who ‘hover’ over their children as they go to university risk compromising their transition to adulthood. As parents we all have a natural instinct to protect our children at all costs. But most parents need to be empowered to let go to ensure that their children gain vital life skills that become so useful in adult life.
Jane Lunnon is the head of Wimbledon High School in the UK. She endorses Hamilton’s recommendations to parents whose children are about to start university life. Lunnon believes that most parents want to guarantee that when their children leave home to start university life they find a ‘safe space’, almost an extension of the comfort zone they were used to when living at home. So some mothers visit their children’s living quarters, procure their living needs, guarantee cash flows in case of emergencies, and phone or send them SMSs on a regular basis, preferably many times a day.
It is an art that both rich and not so rich parents have to learn. Working class, middle class as well as rich parents want the best for their children
Hamilton makes some very revealing and colourful observations about how parents use different tactics when advising their daughters on the eve of going to university. She speaks about ‘pink’ parents who are obsessed with facilitating a party lifestyle for their undergraduate daughters: “They throw endless cash and energy into boosting their daughter’s social calendar in the hope that she will meet and marry a wealthy man. It often leads to poor grades in a ‘Mickey Mouse’ subject.” In the local context such parents often can afford to send their daughters to universities abroad.
A more common category, according to Hamilton, are the ‘professional’ parents. These parents ‘pour money into boosting their daughter’s CV to increase her chance of a good career. It can include extra help with classes. The children of such parents gain little independence, but are likely to get good grades and well paid jobs.
Finally, there are the ‘paramedic’ parents. They hover and fret from a distance ready to intervene if anything goes wrong. They assume that their children “can manage academic decisions as well as the risks of the party scene”. These parents will rescue if needed. Not surprisingly, this distant relationship helps their children to boost their self-reliance while also getting a good degree and job.
Lunnon draws some interesting conclusions from the different ways that parents deal with their children when they are about to start their university life. She encourages parents to let their children strike out on their own because it helps them develop life skills valued by employers: “It’s these qualities of intellectual resilience and profound confidence because you’ve learnt to separate yourself from your childhood” that will help young adults in the workplace.
It is a sobering reality that raising children is an art that we only master when it is often too late and our children have already become adults. It is an art that both rich and not so rich parents have to learn. Working class, middle class as well as rich parents want the best for their children. They want them to be better than them and succeed where they have failed.
Despite all the good intentions of hovering parents, they need to learn when it is time for their children to fly the nest.
johncassarwhite@yahoo.com