Parenting in the morning...

[elfs]

Mark Oppenheimer worries about helicopter parenting:

I think these kinds of parents are striving to rule out eccentricity. Nobody, after all, is striving to engineer a lovable nerd, or a spacey dreamer, or an obsessive collector.

I dunno, I would much perfer a spacey dreamer or loveable nerd to the prototypical narrow-niched ordinary "teenagers" that seem to haunt the middle and high schools in my district.

Oppenheimer makes a claim that "over-controlling parents are just acting out their own best hunches, or, more likely, their own failed fantasies." If that's so then Storm is living out mine: she's actually popular, something neither Omaha or I ever acheived. And yet what we adults are aware of, more than anything else, is that her happiness is still relative, difficult, and worth thinking about.

Comments

[hydrolagus.livejournal.com]

I think his statement, even in context, is unclear. Is he using nobody concretely or sardonically? If I were more familiar with his writing style I could probably tell for sure, but I think sardonically.
A distinction should be made between attentive and involved, and over-controlling. Storm may be living out your fantasy of being popular, but I bet her ability to do so comes from the environment of self-awareness, responsibility and love that you and Omaha provide. You're not there making sure she has play-dates with the "right" kids and steering her away from the misfits.