their own anxieties that cause them to be overprotective or overinvolved. But, to quote Dory from Finding Nemo, “You can’t never let anything happen to him…then nothing would ever happen to him!”
The over-parented child grows up to be an overachiever, because their childhood was full of activities and it’s the only way they know to live. Or they grow up to be a self-saboteur, because they’re so tired of having everything planned out and they never want to feel like they are in the spotlight ever again. Children of overbearing parents may develop anxiety (I’m not actually as great as Mom thinks, someone will find out I’m faking), depression (I’m so tired and I can’t try anymore), substance abuse problems (I don’t even know who I am, maybe something can help me), and eating disorders (to be anything less than perfect will destroy me).
If the parent isn’t outright controlling and pulling the social strings, they may be overparenting as a helicopter parent. Just as Millennials have their share of HuffPo and Buzzfeed articles, so do the children of overbearing helicopter parents. Of course, many times these groups are one and the same.
“The parents of most Millennials are either Baby Boomers or, for the younger Millennials, Gen Xers. This need for verbal approval and reinforcement correlates with the way detached parenting was normalized in the 1960s and ‘70s, when Boomers grew up. As a result of not being babied or supervised themselves as children, as well as cultural shifts in parenting norms through the progression of technology, these generations overcompensated in their involvement with their Millennial children.14 Thus, “helicopter parents” were created.”
—Ilana Bodker, How Baby Boomer Parents Molded the Millennial Generation
Adult children of helicopter parents often call their parents for advice before decisions. Not just big decisions about buying a home or getting married, but any decision or question, like how long something is supposed to go into the microwave or thinking about changing a hairstyle. They’re also often perfectionists who have an almost pathological need to achieve more and more, but these achievements are more likely to make their parents feel proud or satisfied than the actual person doing the work.
Unfortunately, and very confusingly, helicopter parents of adult children will try to become friends or buddies with their grown kids rather than maintaining a healthy psychological (or even physical) distance. While it can be comforting knowing that Mom and Dad are just a phone call away, it’s not always healthy. In ages past, when a young adult graduated high school and started college, their parents would drop them at the dorms with their books and their duffel bag before scooting on home and sending a letter or two before seeing them for a semester break. These days, we have email and Facebook and cell phones and parents can keep tabs on their kids, even though they’re no longer “kids,” from afar, in an instant.
In a 2013 study at California State University, Fresno, management professors Jill C. Bradley-Geist and Julie B. Olson-Buchanan explored the consequences of helicopter parenting.15 In their review of existing research, they found studies indicating a positive correlation between helicopter parenting and anxiety, depression, and low self-esteem…in two- and four-year-old children (emphasis mine). Also discovered was a correlation between helicopter parenting and neuroticism and dependency. Helicopter parenting is also associated with recreational use of pain medications and taking prescription medication for anxiety and depression.
To really drive home that the challenges of the helicopter-parented children and the challenges of the Millennial are intricately linked, there is also research linking over-parenting and entitlement mentality.16 What else can you expect for a generation raised without the opportunity to struggle and learn from their mistakes? When you’ve gone from age zero to eighteen with your parents doing everything for you, is it any wonder that the world now accuses you of being an entitled narcissist?
Back to the Bradley-Geist and Olson-Buchanan research at California State. Their survey of college students explored general parental involvement and over-parenting as they correlate to various work-related outcomes. Students with overly-involved parents were found to have lower social and general self-efficacy, as well as “maladaptive responses to workplace scenarios.” Those who had been raised with a helicopter parenting style were more likely to choose workplace solutions that relied on someone else, rather than taking personal responsibility.
“Without a strong sense of self-efficacy, or the belief that one can accomplish tasks and goals, young adults are likely to be dependent on others, engage in poor coping strategies, and fail to take accountability in the workplace.” So, what’s a grown adult to do, when they realize they’ve been raised to be essentially helpless?
If you were raised by helicopter parents (or, more likely, a helicopter parent, as single parenthood correlates with over-parenting), all is not lost. You are not merely an entitled blob of dependent workplace goo, waiting for a group project you can hide behind. There is hope for you to become a functional adult in society and avoid harming the development of your own children. This is the ultimate danger of toxic parenting: in an attempt to avoid hurting your children the way you were hurt, you run the risk of swinging the pendulum too far in the opposite direction, hurting them anyway. It happens with parenting just like it happens on a societal scale, one generation blaming the next because they don’t understand why their efforts didn’t do what they wanted.
Adverse Childhood Experiences
One of the most well-known studies related to childhood trauma is the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) study first conducted by the CDC and Kaiser-Permanente from 1995 to 1997.17 The ACE study investigated the correlation between adverse experiences in a subject’s childhood and negative outcomes later in life. The more ACEs someone experienced as a child, the more risk they have for outcomes such as alcohol abuse, depression, illicit drug use, and suicide attempts. There is also a correlation linking ACEs to early initiation of sexual activity, higher risk for domestic violence, higher risk of sexual violence, and increased rates of sexually transmitted infections, adolescent and unintended pregnancies, and fetal death. Similarly, there is an increased risk for smoking (including early initiation of smoking), and health outcomes like liver disease, heart disease, and pulmonary disease. Finally, factors such as poor work performance, financial stress, and poor academic achievement are also linked with ACEs.
What are the ACEs?
The ACEs studied in the late 1990s are common and affect children into their adulthood, possibly for their entire lives. These experiences include:
• Physical abuse
• Sexual abuse
• Emotional abuse
• Physical neglect
• Emotional neglect
• Mother treated violently
• Household substance abuse
• Household mental illness
• Parental separation or divorce
• Incarcerated household member
I believe that traumatic childhood circumstances are linked to the perception that Millennials are entitled and narcissistic. The Baby Boomer Generation skyrocketed the divorce rate in the United States, and divorced parents are one of the ACEs studied. Obviously not every child of divorced parents was neglected or abused, but a divorce is almost always emotionally traumatic. Add to the general trauma of a divorce other ACEs, like witnessing domestic violence or alcohol abuse in the household, and the effect snowballs quickly from a couple of ACEs to a whole pile of them. It can be argued that the Boomer Generation was one of the first that made it socially acceptable to divorce, and I’d argue that they were victim to plenty of ACEs themselves. As we continue to name and study these factors, it’s easier to see the pattern has repeated itself for generations.
Imagine that someone born in the 1950s grew up with either ignoring or engulfing parents. They may have grown up with corporal punishment or been forced to “respect their elders” even if their elders were toxic toward