My kids have some friends that I just felt so bad for. Some of the parents are so over the top. I care of about my kids, about their wellbeing, but I never thought that I was too overbearing. My kids have friends whose parents want to meet before they can hang out. The parents ask questions, and you feel like you are being interviewed to see if you are worthy of overseeing their children.
When my kids were young, I wanted to meet the parents and have proper contact info for them. My kids didn’t have cell phones back then and it was a precaution if anything happened not only there, but if something happened that I needed to get ahold of them. My kids are teenagers now in their last years of high school. I haven’t done the “interview” to the parents of my kid’s friends in many years, but for my daughter’s 16th birthday, I had been interviewed. I thought that was a bit ridiculous considering the girl whose parents came into my home to have a 30+ minute conversation was turning 17 four months after my daughter turned 16.
My younger daughter has a friend whose parents attend every birthday party and every public event that the kids go to. I have dropped my kids off at the mall for years. They walk around the mall hovering behind the kids. It is to the point that my daughter declines to do certain things with her friend because she doesn’t want to deal with the parents. From what I hear, my daughter isn’t the only one who declines to spend time with this really nice kid because she can’t shake the parents.
I am all about knowing where you kids are and asking questions. When my kids got their first cell phone, the first thing I did was have them approve me on the Find My Friends app. They were both told that if at any point you stop sharing your location, service will be cut from your phone. My oldest tested me and it was a very long week for the both of us, but a lesson was learned. It never happened again. Since that, I believe we have built a trust. I ask the questions, she answers them. She built up that trust and I had rarely tracked her, just a few random spot checks and never has she lied about her whereabouts.
In the past, I had been so judgmental towards the hovering parents. I had always believed that those parents aren’t protecting their kids, they are just pushing their kids away. Stepping in too close and not allowing their kids to make their own decisions, just prevents them from learning how to make wise decisions. Not a doubt in my mind that my parenting style of giving some leeway and building that trust was much more effective than making all their decisions for their kids.
My oldest now has her driver’s license. We had talked about driving safe and ways to practice that all through driving with her permit. As we approached her appointment to take her driver’s test, we talked heavily about distracted drivers. We discussed that for the first month, she would drive to and from school and work only. The occasional errand, but definitely no friends in the car for least 30 days of her driving unsupervised and then we would discuss it again.
I did ask her to text me when she would leave and arrive at her destination. She would roll her eyes at me but would do it. We talked about this being new and scary for me too and that the texting wouldn’t have to go on for too long, but to humor me in the beginning. After about 2 weeks, I calmed down and only asked for texts when it was snowing or icy. I never saw this as a warning sign of the hover mom and had no idea how everything I had always believed would be questioned.
My panic and hovering had gotten so much worse. After 5 weeks of having her license, she asked to drive a friend to Five Below and Target. We talked about one friend since her junior license only allows for 1 person under the age of 16 until the driver has been driving for at least 6 months. We talked about if you go anywhere other than that strip mall, she will need to let me know. She left and I felt confident we were on the same page.
After about 3 hours of her being gone, I decided to track her. She was at the Starbucks in the same shopping center. I tried to go about my day and fought my desire to track again until it was pushing the 5 hour mark. How long can kids shop and hang out of for coffee. I decided I had to track her again. Now she is clear across town. My child, my honest, goody two-shoes, straight A child is now not where she is supposed to be. I am concerned, I am angry, and I am obsessed with watching her every move.
She stops in a residential neighborhood, a very familiar address. This is where one of her friends live, not the friend she had said she was picking up and taking home. About 3 minutes later, she is on the move again. I watch as she drives towards home and then veers off into another residential area. Again, she stops at a familiar address for just a few minutes. So now that is at least two friends she has now dropped off or picked up that were not who we discussed being in her car. If she gets pulled over for any reason, she could lose her license until she is 18.
Now she is back on track and heading towards her friend’s house that she had told me she was going to pick up and take home. I have calmed down a bit by the time she gets home. I decide that I am going to give her the opportunity to tell the truth and not flip out the moment she walks in the door. She gets home and I ask her if she had fun. She tells me about her day and shows me what she bought. I asked if having someone in the car was distracting at all to her. She says it wasn’t and then started telling me more about the ride there and back. My oldest is never overly descriptive with her stories, but this story had so much detail. She was going into things like “when I turned on to the highway” and “then I turned at the bank”. Even if I didn’t already know, I would know from this story.
My daughter is usually honest, but answers very short, just what she is asked. As soon as she gets diarrhea of the mouth, I know something is up. She goes into her room for a bit. She comes back out to ask about dinner and as I am making it, I ask more about her day. We are going back and forth, and I throw in “I didn’t think Arial liked coffee”. She got part of the way through telling me that she was overruled by the rest before she realized I had known she picked up more people than she was allowed to. She ended up fessing up.
I was so disappointed that not only did she break the rules, but she tried to hide it from me. To say the least, she is back to just driving to school, school actives, and work. No one is allowed in the car with her. My tracking of her has increased greatly. I get so nervous when she is out there alone. This event of her not doing as she was told, has made my helicopter so much worse. I now see the warning signs of becoming overbearing. I am doing the opposite of what I have always thought.
This whole experience has made me wonder if my judgement of other parents was wrong. Maybe their kids did something that caused them to not trust them and therefore be much more involved. Then I began questioning if I would still be so freaked out while she was driving even if she did exactly what she said she was going to do on first time out with a friend or was this just the excuse I needed to unleash my hover. Am I not the person I thought I was? Is the reaction based on the huge life event of her driving? Do I fear her growing up and slipping away? Too many questions bouncing around my head, I finally wonder if this is just the sort of thing that will push me over the edge and now, I’m finally losing my mind?
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