Helicopter parent
helicopter parent: sostantivo
helicopter parenting: sostantivo non numerabile
lawnmower parent: sostantivo
lawnmower parenting: sostantivo non numerabile
Helicopter parents often take parenting to unhealthy levels which can lead to parents taking responsibility for their child’s actions.
Although the term is most often applied to parents of high school or college-aged students who do tasks the child is capable of doing alone, helicopter parenting can apply at any age.
Tanti anni fa, quando m’iscrissi all’università a oltre 600 km di distanza, i miei genitori molto gentilmente mi accompagnarono alla stazione e mi diedero una mano a caricare i bagagli sul treno. L’idea di portarmi in macchina fino a Edimburgo o di chiamarmi ogni giorno per sapere come me la stessi cavando non li avrebbe nemmeno sfiorati (per quanto, anche se avessero voluto, telefonarmi sarebbe stato impossibile, dato che nella Casa dello studente dove abitavo c’erano solo due o tre telefoni a gettone. Ero io a farmi viva da lì, un paio di volte a trimestre… Niente cellulari o email, all’epoca).
Non esiste un termine, una frase ad effetto per descrivere i miei genitori o il loro modo d’intendere la cura dei figli – forse hands off è l’espressione che più si avvicina. L’approccio genitoriale opposto invece è quello incarnato dagli helicopter parents, i cosiddetti ‘genitori elicottero’. Chissà quanti ne conoscete! Ma sì, sono quelli che tengono sotto controllo ogni momento della vita dei figli: non si limitano a sorvegliarli mentre fanno i compiti ma glieli fanno loro, si lamentano con preside o professori se il pargolo prende un brutto voto o viene rimproverato, stanno continuamente in contatto con i figli tramite cellulare e social media, senza mai permettere loro di sbagliare o di prendere una decisione in autonomia.
All’helicopter parent si affianca il lawnmower parent [lawnmower = tosaerba], che facilita i progressi dei figli spianando loro la strada da qualunque ostacolo. Il ‘genitore-ruspa’, potremmo chiamarlo in italiano.
Instead of hovering, lawnmower parents clear a path for their child before they even take a step, pre-empting possible problems and mowing down obstacles in their child’s way.
Origini del termine
Helicopter parent apparve per la prima volta nel libro dello psicologo infantile Haim Ginott Adolescenti e genitori (pubblicato in Italia nel 1970), in cui un’adolescente paragonava la madre a un elicottero perché «mi ronza continuamente sopra la testa». Helicopter parent, come seagull manager [che piomba sui dipendenti strillando] e tiger mother [tosta e severa] è un nome composto da due sostantivi di cui uno, molto evocativo, usato con funzione di aggettivo per creare un’immagine vivida, e spesso critica, di un comportamento o un atteggiamento umano.
helicopter parent: noun
helicopter parenting: uncountable noun
lawnmower parent: noun
lawnmower parenting: uncountable noun
Helicopter parents often take parenting to unhealthy levels which can lead to parents taking responsibility for their child’s actions.
Although the term is most often applied to parents of high school or college-aged students who do tasks the child is capable of doing alone, helicopter parenting can apply at any age.
Many years ago, when I went off to start my degree studies at a university 400 miles away from home, my parents very kindly gave me a lift to the local station and saw me onto the train with my trunk. They would no more have considered driving me to Edinburgh than they would thought of phoning me every day to find out how I was getting on. (Even if they had wanted to do so it would have been impossible, as the halls of residence where I lived had a few payphones in a basement, from which I called them a couple of times a term to report that I was still alive and well. The mobile phone and the Internet were still decades in the future).
There is no catchy term to describe my parents or their style of parenting – hands off might perhaps come close – but helicopter parents are easily recognised. They are the ones who supervise every moment of their child’s life: helping with their homework (or even doing it for them), calling the school to complain if their offspring’s grades fall below the highest level, keeping in constant contact, friending them on Facebook, never allowing them to make a mistake or a decision of their own.
A new variety of over-protective parent has recently been spotted. This is the lawnmower parent, who facilitates their child’s progress by clearing their path of all obstacles. The image – of a lawnmower cutting a neat path through long grass – is perhaps more familiar in English-speaking countries, but the phenomenon is a familiar one everywhere.
Instead of hovering, lawnmower parents clear a path for their child before they even take a step, pre-empting possible problems and mowing down obstacles in their child’s way.
Origin
The term helicopter parent was first used in a book called Between Parent & Teenager by Dr. Haim Ginott, published in 1969, in which a teenager complained that her mother ‘hovered over her like a helicopter’. Helicopter parent is similar to other compounds such as seagull manager or tiger mother where a suggestive noun is used attributively to create a vivid image of a type of human behaviour, usually one that is being viewed critically.
