Helicopter Parents(I)

As parents of two adult children, currently 27 and 25, we are proud to be their helicopter parents. Nothing shameful about that. 

People have been giving bad prep to helicopter parents. They are not leaving their children alone.

Based on the AI overview, “Helicopter parenting is a style characterized by excessive, overprotective, and hovering involvement in a child's life, aimed at shielding them from failure, discomfort, or harm. These parents micromanage activities, relationships, and academics, often extending this control into adolescence and adulthood, which can hinder the development of a child's independence, resilience, and decision-making skills.”

So be it. Let me explain why.

Both my husband and I grew up without our fathers in our lives. 

My father left the family when I was 7 years old and passed away in 1993. My mother, a single mother of three young children, was chronically sick with leukemia, and as a female artist, she was forced to hustle to care for us. She did everything that she could to make money. As a result, she was not available at home often. I have been telling my childhood stories both in Vietnamese and English in so many entries here.

For this entry, I would like to share a childhood story of Nguyen, my husband, to understand why he has become a helicopter parent.

Nguyen‘s mother passed away in 2005 due to lung cancer. Nguyen’s father is 94 years old. He is impressively healthy compared to his age. He is a happy grandfather with 6 grandchildren, from 27 years old to 2 years old. He enjoys seeing the youngest grandchildren, 4 and 2 years old, who live nearby on a regular basis. He attended his oldest grandson’s graduation from the Naval Academy. He comes to spend time with my sister-in-law's family every Thanksgiving. He visits Hawaii to see my daughter and see her off to Japan. He is proud to show off his family, as everyone is successful in the US. 

One night in Oct 2024, while I was in Vietnam to visit my siblings, Nguyen called me from Seattle. He was awake. He had an insightful thought that he needed to share right away.

He spoke, “ I understand now why I was so angry at my father. I would get mad and get triggered by him all the time”. Nguyen cried. I could hear the tears drop through his voice. I could picture him sitting in his car at the parking lot in Seattle, alone in the darkness and crying.

He said,” My father has never been a father figure to me. He is here all the time but totally absent. He spends time with the family all the time, but has never available emotionally to me.” 

Nguyen recalled. When I was a 7-8-year-old boy, I was beaten up by my uncle repeatedly. My biological father was there and witnessed it. He stood there. He did absolutely nothing. He did not protect me. He did not beat me, but let other people do it. I fainted two times. Finally, my mother had to come over my body and say stop. My father was always around, but never the father that I needed.”

( I will come back to this important story with details later) 

Nguyen said, “Now I understand how I have too much rage inside me. I got angry at myself all the time. I got mad, and my behavior affects my own children. I hurt my family. I hurt my daughter.” 

I cried with Nguyen over that phone call. We appreciated this enlightening moment that helped Nguyen to open up his heart. He could share his past trauma. He could understand the root of resentment toward his father, and his guilt that “ I affected my family and my daughter.”
 

The story below is what I was told by Nguyen and his mother, my mother- in-law when she was with us.

After 1975, as the majority of people from the South, Nguyen’s family lost almost everything. They lost their country, identity, property, money, and future. Nguyen‘s family made at least three attempts to escape Vietnam after 1975 without success. Either they got scammed, or the trip had to stop to avoid being arrested by the local authority. His mother spent the whole fortune, including money and gold tales, on the trips that always ended up coming back to Hue with nothing else excepted dissapointment and the uncertainty for the future.

From their hometown, Hue, the whole family decided to move to Sai Gon, living with Nguyen’s Ba Noi (paternal Grandmother) at the same household in Phu Nhuan district. The family hoped that they could find a legal way to get out of Vietnam through US-sponsored programs as OPD and refugee asylum petition. 

Nguyen's Ba Noi used to be a powerful and wealthy individual in Hue and Hoi An. After 1975, she sold her big house in Nam Dao, Hue, and moved to Sai Gon. She had a lot of money and gold. Nguyen’s father did not have a real job but lived a comfortable life with Ba Noi’s money.

Ba Noi did not love Nguyen’s mother. She hated her only daughter-in-law because Nguyen’s mother did not flatter or sweet-talk to her.  Nguyen recalled, “Every day, Ba Noi would call my mother a slut and whore.” “Now I think, how can you stand that someone keeps calling your mother whore day in and day out like that?” So I did not love her either.

As a young child, Nguyen understood that his Ba Noi did not love/ insulted his mother. To react and protect his mother, Nguyen acted out and was mischievous. He would make noise when he was not allowed.

Nguyen said,” We had to keep quiet when Ba Noi took a nap at noon. I would make noise, shake her mosquito net to wake her up, then run off. One time, Ba Noi was up and threw her wooden shoe at me. Ba Noi would hit me on the head when she was mad at me. I think she was mad at my mother and hit me instead.” “ I would steal Ba Noi's money from her blouse pocket to buy candies.” “ I did a lot of things that annoy her and other adults. I was hit and beaten by adults. I got hit in my head so many times.” 

Nguyen’s father would not be present or, worse, stay silent. He did not say or do anything to protect his wife and his son. Because at that time, Ba Noi continued to give her only son, who was 40 years old, money to spend. 

During the time the family stayed in Sai Gon, Nguyen’s father was unemployed. He kept himself busy following up with all the needed paperwork/procedures and waiting for the visa to get out of Vietnam. 

Nguyen’s mother told me that in the morning, Nguyen’s father would get out of the house, come over to the street cafe shop to have a cup of coffee with friends.   

Nguyen‘s mother could not stay at home when her mother-in-law kept calling her a whore and slut. She got out of the house to hustle for money.

Nguyen recalled that he helped his mother to illegally sell things on the street. Both of them often got chased by the local police. They displaced items on a blue tarp placed on the pavement to sell things like clothes and fabric. They tightened the strings that held the 4 corners of the blue tarp, ready to run if seeing the local police. They could run to the other side of the street to avoid being arrested. If they get caught, all the items would be confiscated.

Nguyen remembered that when he was around  6-7 year-old boy, he used to stand in front of the alley waiting for his mother to come home. The boy was always afraid that his mother would leave and never come back. From his maternal family side, there was an aunt who left the husband, his uncle,  with 6 small children and never came back.

But Nguyen’s mother always came back to him.

Every month, Nguyen‘s mother would go back to Hue to ask Ba Ngoai (maternal grandmother) for money to spend. Ba Ngoai would give a bag of rice and a gold ring. They would sell the gold ring and used money to buy food for up to three months.

Ba Noi was rich, but she would never give the family the money. Ba Ngoai had gold. I was told that after 1975, she hid her gold under the well in the backyard of her house. During that difficult time, using her gold, Ba Ngoai took care of at least 20 family members, including Nguyen’s family, until his family left Vietnam in 1983. During the summer, when children took their summer break, Nguyen and his cousin would be sent to Hue, so Ba Ngoai would take care of them. 

Nguyen‘s mother was a beautiful but petite lady. She was a strong lady. She said that she would never kiss ass her mother-in-law. She would never ask her mother-in-law for money. She stayed quiet and ignored all the verbal insults from her mother- in- law. Sometimes she could not emotionally take it anymore, and she developed a seizure and fell on the ground. Nguyen recalled. “ As a skinny, small 6-year-old boy, I would helplessly sit down by my mother and did not know help.  Then neighbors would advise him to massage his mother’s head and temples with Eucalyptus oil to revitalize her.” Eucalyptus oil was Nguyen’s mother favoirite aroma therapuctic oilment to the rest of her life. 

Nguyen continued, when his mother went back to Hue to ask for money, she would take her children along on a coach ride. On one trip like that, when they passed over Hai Van Pass, his mother suffered from car sickness and fainted.

I would imagine the coach that ran on coal would be crowded with all the passengers, plus suitcases and overloaded things on top. 

The driver kicked Nguyen’s mother with two young children out of the coach and left them in the middle of the road. He would be afraid that the mother might die soon while on his coach.

Let's picture a frail, fainted mother, too weak to sit up, lying down with a 6-year-old boy who wore shorts and a t-shirt, and a 3-year-old baby girl in doll clothes, who were left alone in the middle of nowhere at Hai Van Pass.

 Nguyen shared with horror through his voice, “ I was not sure why we were surviving that day. My mother did not die. No one kidnapped my baby sister. She was a cute baby. No one kidnapped me. I remembered that my mother tried to hold on to two children tightly for a long time. Another coach stopped by, picked us up. They was kindly enough to drop us at the Huong Giang hotel. My mother asked a three-wheel xilo rider to take three of us across the bridge.” “ My mother said that Bs Ngoai would pay for the ride.” 

After that, Nguyen’s mother had to stay in Hue for three months to recover.

“My father was not available. If he had, my mother would not be in such a horrible situation.”

When his mother was in labor, having her third child, again, his father was not available. Nguyen did not know where he was. His mother was in pain, gave Nguyen some money, and told him to take care of his small sister. Nguyen saw that his mother's water was broken. Nguyen stayed with his sister while his mother walked away by herself to find a xilo to the hospital. 

Nguyen recalled that his mother was in so much pain and alone. When she walked on foot from the alley to the street to find a xilo, she held a street electrical pole so tight that she would not scream out loud.

That night in Oct 2024, the past revealed things clearly, and Nguyen cried out loud to find out why he hated his father so much. 

He said he would never let anyone do any harm to his children. He would never let his children be alone by themselves like that.

The trauma from the past is still heavy in his heart and mind. The fear of leaving our children alone is so real that we would never let them out of our sight. Both parents would take time to be with our children until they are grown. Nguyen’s overprotection of his two children made sense as he had to be left alone when he needed his father the most. 

Both of our childhood stories shared similar events that forced us to grow up fast to survive. Neither of us had parents around to take care of us. Neither of us had a regular childhood like others. We were left to figure out how to grow up and take care of our own younger siblings at the same time.

So let Nguyen and me become helicopter parents. 

Maybe that's how we made up for our childhood/re-parented ourselves and for our fathers as well?