Recently I traveled to Michigan for the memorial service of an old family friend. During the memorial service, many people spoke about this very unique man and how he had affected the lives of those around him. It was here that I heard the phrase 'Helicopter Parents' for the first time (although I may have undeerstood it's meaning long before I heard the phrase.
All of us spent our summers as children (and as adults) on a small lake in Michigan, and it is here as children we got to know 'Bud' as he was called. The man speaking at the memorial was recounting the wonderful things that Bud had done during his life. The story was about how Bud was always so handy with mechanical things and was always trying to help the kids enjoy their summers. He told about how Bud built a 'Diving Bell' out of an old 55 gal. Drum. It was cut down and in half, with curved shoulder openings that were padded with old bicycle innertubes and had a plexiglas viewing port welded in the front. Also, it had a hole in the top to let out exhaled air, and had a hose line that was connected to a hand operated tire pump. The idea behind this was that you would strap on a lead weight belt and strap this contraption over your head and jump into the water sinking to the bottom of the lake. You would then have someone above the water pump furiously on the tire pump to provide you with air.
The curious thing about this was that all our parents knew (or I'm pretty sure they did) that Bud had built this thing for the kids to have fun. It worked and there were many that tried it out. None of the children was injured or drowned and learned some pretty neat design and engineering principles.
I guess my point in saying all this was that how many parents today would let their children 'hang out' with such an obviously dangerous individual? (tongue-in-cheek)
The reason I bring up 'Helicopter Parents' is, today, there are so many parents that hover over their children and want to protect them from 'perceived' evils that they don't get to experience anything 'dangerous' in life. Life IS dangerous and I sometimes feel that the problems we have with our children today, and the young people who are going to be running our society some day, is because we have become 'Helicopter Parents' never letting children be children.
Bud was a good man to the end to all he met and would never have let us do anything that he thought was too dangerous. He was from a different time... as a young man he was a fighter pilot for the United States during World War II. I guess after that kind of experience the diving bell seemed safe to him.
Parents today need to let their children experince life on life's terms. Some of it good, some of it bad. Taking responsibility for your children does NOT mean hovering over them, it means teaching them responsibility, humility, and respect.... Life will teach them everything else (or it will kill them lol)
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