We did not enter adolescence and early adulthood quietly in the 60s and 70s. We made a big splash into the job market in the 70s and 80s. We have made advertisers rich for decades as they try to coax us to their clients products. And now? We are front stage once again, but this time for how poorly we are handling our own children’s journeys into young adulthood. We have come know as “helicopter parents.” From the Tennesean:
Universities and colleges are coping with a growing number of these well-meaning yet hyper-involved parents. They jump to the rescue whenever their kids don’t like roommates, struggle in a class or can’t get along with a professor.
Some parents are calling deans of students, advisers and residence halls. Some fill out applications. Others try to go to class registration, dominate school visits or even complain about grades to professors.
My concern with this is less about how it impacts my life as a professor (but believe me, it does sometimes). I am more concerned to what we are doing to one of the most entrepreneurial generations to come along in many, many decades.
I remember how my father told me that when I went to college I would learn more outside the classroom than I would sitting in my classes. I didn’t understand this at the time, but as my own children went off to college I remembered his words and how true they were. I learned how to get along with people. I learned how to solve my own problems. I learned how to make my own decisions. My parents were there as a safety net, but they no longer held my hand.
I also remembered his words when we were building our businesses. I appreciated how the successes I had, and more importantly the mistakes I made while in college helped in so many ways to prepare me for the challenges of being an entrepreneur. Two of the greatest lessons I learned were to be confident in myself and to learn from my mistakes, and these lessons served me well.
If I had had helicopter parents I really believe that I would not have been as successful in life, or at least as an entrepreneur. I would have sought security in my career, looking for an employer that would protect me like my parents did. Instead, because of the freedom to succeed and to fail, my independence was made firm and it helped to shape my character and my career.
Our economy is relying more on our entrepreneurial spirit than it has in over a century. But if we continue to hover over out kids, that is our young adult children, they will never be ready to become true leaders in this entrepreneurial economic era in America.