move over soccer moms!

there's a new gal in town!

a *helicopter mom* is a mother who *hovers* over her children...micro-managing every aspect of their development/activity from childhood to beyond...

i learned this term from one of those prime time news reports last friday night...i hadn't ever heard of it before, generally believing this type of mom to be *anal* or *overbearing* or *smothering*...

anyhow, i was interested in the story which was to show a helicopter mom in action as she hovered over her two sons who were both in college and living in the dorms...

i thought what a crack-pot! and settled in to watch...

then they introduced her as a mom who had homeschooled both boys and immediately my radar went up...it seems anymore you can't find anything positive reported by the media having to do with homeschooling...they either starve their children or lock them up or thump them with bibles or force them to live in squalor...okay so my house isn't overly clean but i don't even KNOW where our bible is and the only lock is on our bedroom door used for, well you get the picture...

and if anyone of my kids is seen rooting in the garbage it isn't because they're hungry it's to find evidence that i actually don't keep all their drawings and papers...though wingman did use to eat dirt and lick snail trails, BUT I ASSURE YOU it wasn't because he wasn't fed!...it's because he's just *funny* that way...i'm hoping he continues to grow out of this "hey sure i'll try that...better gimme two!" stage before he gets caught sleeping it off on some random child's bed in the middle of the day in a house and neighborhood and city that is not his own as an adult when it isn't as much *funny* as it is an addiction that causes you to spiral into general lawlessness...

but, i digress...

anyhow, as i'm watching the show i am seeing the mom micro-manage her sons from home while one is two hours away and the other several states away...she downloads their homework and corrects it, creates study lists, keeps track of grades and papers, e-mails and calls several times a day to keep track of them and get a report on a particular class or activity...not to mention drives to the one son's dorm every two weeks to shop and clean and do his laundry for him!

they even showed another mom who called her child from thousands of miles away in a different time zone to wake her up every single morning!...and it took an average of four calls a morning to get her out of bed!!...

oh. my. god.

really?

because while i love my sons and i admit i'm *overly involved in every aspect of their lives* and so far homeschooling is it for us i honestly can say i look forward to the day they are out and doin' it for themselves...not because i want them gone because i'm TOTALLY not counting the days or anything (friday june 19, 2015 and friday june 21, 2019...give or take a day) but because one of my greatest hopes is when they graduate from homeschool and move into the world they are equipped and able to manage their own lives...

and if those lives involve college that they'll be able to manage their own homework schedules and keep track of their own test scores and for cryin' out loud no matter what they choose to do be able to DO THEIR OWN LAUNDRY AND SHOP FOR THEIR OWN FOOD!!

sure they will mess up here and there and mismanage time and not study when they are supposed to and mix more than a few different alcohols in a given night and NOT remember to hydrate and forget to pop an advil before passing out but hey, that's how you learn!!...you fall down and pick yourself up and learn how to avoid falling in the future...at least that's the idea behind survival of the fittest but by god darwin is just simply not kind to some...

and i understand that this *hovering* represents an extension of love for some moms and dads...that it is more than hard to let go...that even when our babies are teenagers and then young adults and then adults with children of their own that they are still our babies...that when we see them we can still remember that they used to fit in our laps...willingly...and we can still remember the way they looked as they slept as children, so small against the pillow clutching their bears with their mouths slightly open, dreaming the dreams only children do...

very sweet...but i'm still making sure my children leave this house with a cookbook, the knowledge of how to shop and wash clothes, and for god's sake a damned alarm clock!

oh, and as a side note on that program both those boys were more than happy to have their mom doing all of that...and incidentally both of them were musicians which is cool but both of them made that face (you know the one that's all full of feeling and sensitivity and is is all gross and creepy like they want to be your lo-vah) when they sang and played and neither of them had a girlfriend/partner...and as forrest gump says that's all i have to say about that...

(though the one who had twice monthly visits from his mom decided recently to finish his last year of school in HAWAII...interesting...i imagine about as far away as he could get without leaving the country)

today's $1 menu tao

sound

wind in the cave:
movement in stillness.
power in silence.

which is exactly what i'll have come saturday june 22, 2019...

silence...

well, except for the sound of my desperate wailing as my grief-ridden tears hit the floor in the cold and empty child-free house...

hey i said i'm not going to be a helicopter mom, i never said i'm not going to be a pathetic mess..

x.