Post by Richard HeathfieldPost by Horace LaBadiePost by DingbatGeneral MacArthur Had a Helicopter Mom | Lisa's History Room
https://lisawallerrogers.com/2009/11/23/general-macarthur-had-a-helicopter-mom
/
Helicopter parent - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helicopter_parent
A helicopter parent (also called a cosseting parent or simply a cosseter)
is a parent who pays extremely close attention to a child's or children's
experiences and problems, particularly at educational institutions.
It's a parent who hovers over the children.
Not sure how Mac's mother could have hovered before there were
helicopters. Maybe in a hot air balloon.
Macarthur was born in 1880.
A French guy came up with the word "helicopter" almost twenty years
before that, and the first helicopter flight was in 1878. It was a UAV,
and under the miraculous power of steam it climbed nearly 15 yards into
the air and maintained a hover for a good 20 seconds.
The first /manned/ helicopter flight was in 1901, but at 21 years old
Macarthur was almost certainly out of nappies by then.
However, the earliest quotation for "helicopter parent in the OED is
much more recent:
1989 Frederick (Maryland) News-Post 6 Sept. b1/4 But don't be
what Mr. Radovich calls ‘a helicopter parent’, who hovers over
children, making sure everything is done for them.
That quotation appears in a number of newpapers at about that time. One
Google search result is:
The Indianapolis Star from Indianapolis, Indiana on August 28, 1989
...
https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/105130141/
28 Aug 1989 - But don't be what Radovich calls "a helicopter
parent," who hovers over children, making sure everything is done
for them. Don't ask them if ...
The article as shown on that webpage doesn't say who Radovich is.
Wikipedia has a different origin:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helicopter_parent
Foster Cline and Jim Fay coined "helicopter parent" in 1990.
It also says:
The metaphor appeared as early as 1969 in the bestselling book
Between Parent & Teenager by Dr. Haim Ginott, which mentions a teen
who complains: "Mother hovers over me like a helicopter..."
--
Peter Duncanson, UK
(in alt.usage.english)