Consequences of Helicopter Parenting- Why Jerry Seinfeld Claims the 60s were a Better Time to Grow Up

Jackson Simpson
6 min readFeb 5, 2018

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Research cited by Genevieve Douglas on February 21, 2017 for Bloomberg BNA claims that Millennials are suffering from depression at a higher rate than previous generations. The study found that one in five Millennials in the workforce suffer from depression compared to only 16% of GenX’ers and Baby Boomers. One major reason Millennials suffer more significantly from depression is due to their overprotective helicopter parents, who cause a crash landing into adulthood. As Brooke Danatone states in her article for The Washington Post, “If parents are navigating every minor situation for their kids, kids never learn to deal with conflict on their own.” Even though the majority of helicopter parents desire the best future for their children, their coddling is inhibiting an entire generation from the ability to cope with the inevitable hardships they will face as adults in their personal and professional lives. The more laid back parenting tactics employed prior to the 1980s forced kids to handle the day-to-day difficulties that accompany freedom, which better equipped their generation for handling challenges and conflict at work.

The lasting psychological effects of the helicopter parent epidemic are garnering more and more attention each and everyday bringing the issue into the national spotlight. The publicity generates a plethora of proclamations by so called parenting experts who support countless contradicting theories on the best way to raise a child. In regards to all the attention parenting styles are receiving, comic Jerry Seinfeld delivered his opinion on the matter during his most recent stand up, Jerry Before Seinfeld. This stand up took place at The Comic Strip in New York City on September 19, 2017, which is where Seinfeld began his comedic career. The beginning of the act focused on his life as a kid growing up in New York in the 1960s.

“ You didn’t even have a childhood. You had nothing! You had garbage compared to what we had in the ‘60s.”

Seinfeld, regarded by many as the king of observational comedy, did not miss a beat as he addressed the issues of modern day parenting by going on a hilarious rant about the perks of growing up in the 1960s. He began his joke by calling out the young people in the crowd and proclaiming, “You didn’t even have a childhood. You had nothing! You had garbage compared to what we had in the ‘60s.” This statement immediately caught the audience off-guard, because our generation has grown so accustomed to hearing adults insist that our lives are much easier than theirs were. Seinfeld knows that most millennials have at least one outspoken older relative that refutes every complaint with, “You kids have it so easy nowadays. Back in my day we had to walk uphill to school both ways rain or shine.” By flipping the expected script on the audience, Seinfeld creates an irony that captures their attention making them eager to hear him explain his uncommon stance. After pausing for laughter, he follows up his previous statements by explaining, “You know why? Your parents paid attention to you, OK? They were interested in you. My parents, our parents, they didn’t even know our names, OK?” Once again the crowd roars with laughter in response to Seinfeld’s ironic observation. While logic would lead most to believe that the more attention and guidance you receive from your parents the better, Seinfeld along with many psychologists point out all the attention may not be such a good thing.

Jerry Seinfeld sitting with all his bits that he has ever used spread out across a Brooklyn street.

“ We grew up like wild dogs in the ‘60s! There was no nutrition.
Nothing… of knowledge of nutrition, education, safety. Can you even imagine
the world I am describing? No helmets, no seat belts, no restraints”

While there are many different theories as to why parenting has changed so drastically in the last half century, many experts blame the media for exposing parents to so many potential dangers their child could face which in turn causes them to become more protective than they were during the 1960s. The world Seinfeld grew up in posed many of the same threats that now cause parents to constantly monitor their children’s safety. The change in parenting over the last 5 decades isn't necessarily driven by an increased danger, but rather increased knowledge of the risks children face thanks to instantaneous news. In an article for CNN, Author Jeannette Kaplun states, “The reality is now we know more about what happens in the world … so that obviously increases your perception of the world being much less safe.” Seinfeld’s parents simply did not perceive the world to be an extremely dangerous place so they were laid back like most other parents from their generation. Seinfeld points out his parents’ relaxed nature by saying, “They were ignorant, they were negligent, they were checked-out.” He also describes his parents’ lack of safety and nutrition knowledge by explaining, “[We had] No helmets, no seat belts, no restraints. Anything came to a stop, we just flew through the air. I was either eating 100% sugar, or airborne.” This laissez-faire parenting style Seinfeld describes sharply contrasts with the current protective parenting ideology that leaves many parents feeling inadequate if they can’t to afford the top of the line car seat. This growing impression of a dangerous world has given birth to the mean world syndrome and continues to escalate the coddling tendencies of helicopter parents.

Mean world syndrome is a term coined by George Gerbner to describe a phenomenon whereby violence-related content of mass media makes viewers believe that the world is more dangerous than it actually is.

Another aspect that has caused this revolutionary change in parenting over the last 50 years is the rise of college-admission stress. There is now so much pressure on high school students to receive all A’s to be admitted to the college of their choice. In a survey of high-school students conducted by NYU, 49% of the students reported feeling a great deal of stress from academic pressures. Due to the high pressures on students to perform at an elite academic level, parents have become involved in their children’s education. Parents now monitor their kid’s grades often and are willing to fight teachers and administrations if they don’t like the grade their child earned. As a father of three kids ranging from 12–17 years of age, Seinfeld is very much aware of the current pressures on students. The constant overseeing of kid’s education by parents that is so common today is vastly different from the world Jerry Seinfeld described in his recent joke about parenting. In regards to how involved his parents were in his education, Seinfeld expresses, “My parents, they did not know where my school was, they didn’t know what my grades were, they didn’t know where I was.” This academic independence Seinfeld describes allowed students to learn and develop autonomously, which in turn helped them prepare for the real world.

“No helmets, no seat belts, no restraints. Anything came to a stop, we just flew through the air.”

There is no doubt that parenting has changed drastically since Jerry Seinfeld grew up in the 1960s. The laissez-faire parenting style of the 60s has been replaced by overly attentive helicopter parenting, placing children under a microscope. The radical shift of parenting over the last half century is in part thanks to the Internet and mass media for causing the mean world theory, which paints the world as an extremely dangerous place. The combination of a growing misconception of danger and heightened academic pressures has created the perfect storm that has blown away the carefree parenting styles of the 1960s. Using the platform of his most recent stand up special, Jerry Before Seinfeld, Seinfeld delivered his opinion that parenting has in fact changed for the worst in a brilliantly delivered joke. Through the expertly crafted diction and meaning behind his most recent joke on parenting, Jerry Seinfeld reminded us why he is still considered by many the king of comedy.

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