Helicopters parent. That is the term so many members of her family teasingly called her when her son took his first steps. Thinking back, they even criticized how much she held him as a baby. “He’ll never learn to self soothe.” “You’re nursing him too long” “he’s just attached to your hip.” “He’s just a mama’s boy huh!”

Her favorite was when people would surprisingly say, “well what are you doing down in the floor! He’ll learn to play on his own, just let him figure it out.” And he did. Eventually he slept in his own bed, learned to play outside on his own, and despite all the extra babying he ensured, he grew up bold and confident in himself. Through the years his mother best her self up mentally whenever she had the urge to hold him too long or rock him to sleep or make a separate meal for him because he didn’t like casserole like she didn’t as a kid. Okay

So when the police knocked on her door to ask if she could identify him at the hospital that’s when she realized too late how much she didn’t care about other people’s opinions. She wished she had held him long, rocked him more, and followed him in her car that day when he asked to ride his bike to the store. Where were those critics now?...she soon found out they had switched sides.

“Why was he out on his own?” “Don’t you know this isn’t your parents’ world.”

She was two blocks away, but she’s to blame.