Last updated on July 1st, 2024 at 03:25 pm
I was recently told I am a helicopter mom and I’ve been trying to let go of the iron grip. For so many years I longed for these children. My heart ached so badly for them. I shed many tears thinking I couldn’t have them. Monetarily: we took out loans for infertility treatments. Emotionally: our hearts went through the ringer. Physically: I put my body through my version of hell. All of this to get them here. All of this to be a family and watch them live and love and grow.
I’m not sure if I would have been one anyways or if it’s because of those things that I recently realized that I am a “helicopter mom”. I didn’t even know there was such a thing, but sure enough, there it is; I Googled it and it came up in the dictionary. I thought back over the past 2 1/2 years…. Yep, that time and that time. And then there was that time. Oh yea. Yep. Uh huh. Yep. I am a helicopter mom! Is this really so bad? Isn’t it good that I am “all up in my kids’ business”? Ok, I guess not. I DON’T WANT MY KIDS TO GET HURT, OR BE SAD, OR HURT OTHERS! Isn’t that normal? Does any mom?
But I know, I know. I gotta let them stumble and fall. I have to let them get hurt a little to learn to get back up again. I need to let them learn to make themselves happy and not rely on someone else. And I have to make sure they know not to hurt others. I need to learn to let go of parenting with this iron grip and foster their independence. Even their own independence, separate from their twin. This is something extremely hard for me to do, I have to admit. We tried with a vengeance to get these perfect little human beings into this world and I want them to stay my perfect little humans without scrapes and bruises and broken hearts. I want to tell my boys one day, “Believe it or not, I used to be cool. I’ve been to some interesting places with some amazing friends and tried some crazy things and met new people and tasted new foods and drank too much and seen some things and loved too hard.” I know I want them to experience all the experiences and feel all the feelings as well, all of life’s good stuff. I know I want them to… some day. But in the meantime, I guess I gotta take baby steps into letting them grow up.
I think maybe this “growing up” thing is harder for me than it is for them. I thought it was hard the first time around. I thought it was hard when I skinned my knee and only my momma knew how to kiss it correctly to fix it. I thought it was hard when I couldn’t find my new Barbie and searched the house for it. I thought it was hard when those girls wouldn’t play with me at recess or when that boy didn’t like me. I thought it was hard when I didn’t get that A. I thought it was so hard the first time around, when I was young, and now I am realizing its so much harder to watch my little guys struggle at something and want so badly to do it for them; but to know that I can’t because they need to learn and grow and sometimes stumble and fall and pick themselves back up again. This is by far the hardest thing I have ever done in my life and I definitely have a new respect for my momma.
I have felt many times that I would “fit” better in a different decade. One with less technology, less distractions — yes, less social media — and most of all less violence, hatred, and evil. I would love to be able to have the freedom to let my children walk to school one day and for me not to have this unbelievable anxiety about them actually going to school. I would love to be able to let my children play down the street with the neighbor kids and come home at dark for dinner, but I know they will never get to experience that and that saddens me beyond belief. I would love for them to have a tiny bit of the freedom that I had and even a fraction of what my parents had, but I know they will never have that because of the evil that this world has become. Or maybe I just read the news too much. But if we were in another decade, we wouldn’t have this family to protect because the science that brought them to us hadn’t been invented yet.
I am a helicopter mom. I know I hover. But maybe I have good intentions. To protect what we worked so very very painstakingly hard, for years, through hell or high water, through loan after loan, through injection after injection, through IUI to IVF, through sickness and health to make sure these two precious little people could be here on this beautiful green Earth with us! I think I will try to step back a bit. I know they need to learn to stumble and fall and brush themselves off. I will teach them that they have to make themselves happy and they cannot rely others. And I need to make sure they know never to hurt others and always have a kind spirit and a kind heart. But I think I will continue being a “helicopter mom”. Unfortunately this world is not what it used to be. I know there is a lot a life for them out there and a lot of evil that can come to them. So I plan to hover as long as I can.
We will eventually guide them into the world but hopefully I will have a little peace in my heart that we have armed them with enough will-power, courage, and insight to stand up for themselves, their brother, and their friends, no matter what comes.
Mikenzie Oldham is a full-time twin mommy, a full-time wife, a full-time employee, a full-time maid, a full-time chef, and a full-time writer. Juggling life as twin mommy in a kid-centric world, she survives all this with a steady intake of caffeine and wine. She has perfected the phrase “don’t hit your brother” and her main expertise is cleaning mud out of someone’s ear, kissing “owies” and finding four shoes. Check out all her boys’ shenanigans at meandallmyboys.wordpress.com.
