“Helicopter parents,” by definition, are those who take an excessive, overprotective interest in the lives of their children. Rachel Langford takes her self-appointed title of “hover mother” in stride.
Langford is the mother of a 16-year-old son and 18-year-old daughter and sees her protective practices as a necessary means of survival.
“I tell them, I always want to know the who, what, when, where and how. Give me an address so that if something happens, I know what direction to look for you. I need to know these things,” she said. “My children think it’s because I don’t trust them, but that’s not it. It’s that I don’t trust other people with them.”
Langford said she has been having conversations with her children, particularly her son, about safety, with subject matter stemming from national headlines about police-action shootings of unarmed Black people. She said that much of what’s going on nationally and locally has put her in a state of “heightened awareness.”
A justifiably pessimistic perspective
Langford’s position is not unlike those of many other parents of Black teens. A 2015 study on Parenting in America done by the Pew Research Center found that while a majority of American parents (62 percent) say they would label themselves “overprotective,” the occurrence is more common among mothers of any race (68 percent) and Black parents of both sexes (70 percent). Additionally, 54 percent of Black parents surveyed — more than any other racial group surveyed — said they “stick to their guns too much” in parenting. While most white parents worried their children would suffer with anxiety, depression or substance abuse, about four in 10 Black parents were fearful their teen would be shot.
In Indianapolis, that fear is steeped in a very grim reality: Of the more than 60 homicides committed in the city this year, 11 of the victims were teenagers.
Michelle Sims, who identifies as Italian, was raised by a white mother and Black stepfather in majority-Black neighborhoods in Indianapolis. Later in life, she married a Black man and has raised three biracial children. Currently, her 16-year-old son Domonique is experiencing the by-products of her strict household guidelines.
“My son has seen two friends over the past two years killed,” she said. These situations and others have resulted in her banning him from places most teens frequent, such as the skating rink and the mall. With her older children, Sims noted, their father was present in the home so things were a bit more relaxed.
“My younger son doesn’t have that benefit. So being a single mom, I’ve had to shelter him a lot. … It becomes a battle with he and I.”
Sims remarked that she feels there is a distinct difference in the way that Black teens and white teens are parented because of the external pressures.
“Police officers don’t harass (white children) the way they do our kids. They can walk around in groups and not get harassed,” she said. “Our kids can just be walking to the store and get harassed.” Sims, who lives two blocks away from a northwest-side grocery store, said three out of four times when her teen and other kids are walking there, they are stopped by police. “If there’s more than two or three of them, I tell them ‘You can’t walk together.’ (Police) don’t do white people like that.”
Simonna Woodson, the mother of a 16-year-old son, said increasing instances of violence and crime have hurt their relationship. “I don’t give him a lot of freedom that a 16-year-old thinks they deserve. For the most part, when school was in, I would let him get a ride home when I didn’t pick him up, and that was the most freedom he would have.”
A few years ago, Woodson moved her family to a housing community on the northwest side of town from their former home near 30th Street and Keystone Avenue.
“Us living in the hood, seeing stuff randomly and knowing that he doesn’t have to (necessarily) be involved — it could be wrong place, wrong time — it’s a lot,” she said. “Little pockets of activity where you might have to walk through someone selling drugs or smoking weed or doing the wrong thing … you might have to bypass that getting to the store, and I don’t want him to deal with that.”
Though living in the new location should have eased her fears, a scary moment last December re-upped Woodson’s anxiety.
Woodson’s son was walking home from school when “he got hit by a car and the guy that did it initially ran, but then came back to get him with his family in the car. He gave my son $20 and dropped him off at home.”
Though her son received the necessary medical attention to mend his injuries, Woodson still struggles with finding a balance between smothering and protecting. She said she wishes there were more opportunities for her son to hang out and have fun in safe environments. “I think if teens had more access to these kinds of spaces they would feel less hopeless and they’d have more guidance.”
Investment, solutions and resources
Pastor John Girton, senior pastor of Christ Missionary Baptist Church, sees raising teens as an investment that must be protected. “It’s extremely challenging to think of your teen just being out there. My daughter is driving now, she’s about to go to college, she has a 3.7 GPA, and basically a full-ride scholarship to school waiting on her. My point is, we have to be careful who we allow her to integrate her time with,” said Girton.
This summer, Girton is bringing back his 30-Day Tent Campaign, an initiative that focuses on bringing awareness to issues of violence and crime in the city. Last week, he started his camp-out on the corner of 29th and Martin Luther King Jr. streets in hopes of not only educating and informing visitors and passersby, but also providing solutions and resources.
“We’re taking this tent campaign as an opportunity to empower and engage with our young people and give them the resources to advocate for what they need,” he said.
On Friday, there will be a forum for youth ages 12-21 from 5-7 p.m. at the tent. The conversation, which will be streamed live on Facebook, will be moderated by one of the youth. Every Friday following, different activities will take place. Girton is also teaching teens how to create their own podcasts.
“Parents need to make sure the young people are some place where there are people that can invest in them,” he said. “Children need to be around people who find them doing something positive and then encourage them in that positive thing. Parents aren’t always tuned in to that because they’re focused on the other things — what you can’t do, shouldn’t do or didn’t do.”
Tonita and Latheresa Diaz agree that positive reinforcement coupled with continuing dialogue is a positive approach for parents. The married couple has three teenagers — 15- and 17-year-old daughters and a 16-year-old son.
“My wife and I were just talking about it, (the) prayer of protection. We want our kids to experience things and come up with their own resolutions. We do not hold them back from being teenagers, but we do pray daily on protecting them in whatever way and praying for their future and destiny in a positive manner,” said Theresa.
She added that she sees herself as more of the disciplinarian and a straight shooter when it comes to tough topics. “I explain in plain language and very honestly what’s happening, what that means and how can you protect yourself. We talk about everything from religion to sex. I don’t pull any punches, sugarcoat or leave out things, because it doesn’t educate (them).”
She believes that these types of open conversations aid her children in making sound decisions. When the teens falter in their decision-making, though, they do face consequences at home.
“They are held accountable,” said Tonita. “We expect them to be honest with us and forthcoming. Don’t tell us you’re going to Sally’s house when in fact you’re going to a party. I’m not saying that they’re (always) going to abide by that, but when we find out that this is something that has happened, we sit them down, take phones, car keys … there are consequences.”
The Diazes added that this process began when the children were much younger. Now that they’re teens, the couple hopes that the knowledge they gave them in their foundational periods will kick in.
Recently, they found out their 17-year-old had been in a potentially violent situation and used the circumstances as a teachable moment. “One thing I stressed is that she needed to stop and pause, because the truth is as humans, we create what happens,” said Tonita. “So if you can put yourself in a situation where your speech is positive, your being is positive, you’re going to bring about positive things. The people you surround yourself with, if they’re positive and going places, you’ll find yourself doing the same thing. The main part of it was, review your circle. If the friends around you are chaotic, you’re going to find yourself in chaotic situations.”
The burden of actuality
Rachel Langford’s daughter is just 20 days apart in age from slain Warren Central student Dijon Anderson. Anderson, who died last month from injuries sustained during a May 6 shooting, was a star athlete and soon-to-be high school graduate. Langford, who is also good friends with Anderson’s mother, recalled seeing Dijon a month or so before he passed while having dinner with her children at a restaurant.
“With him, he was at the wrong place at the wrong time and was with the wrong people. Now a good kid is deceased.
“Since Dijon passed, it really put things into perspective,” she said, noting that it has made her even more protective of her own children. “I felt a sense of guilt because (he and my daughter) were both graduating. I felt that I shouldn’t be celebrating my daughter because my friend is mourning her baby’s death.”
Christa Frazier, Anderson’s mother, said she and her son had a good relationship based on trust. She said she wasn’t a strict parent but a cautious one. She made sure to know who his friends were and kept him engaged in activities like football, which he exceled at and was passionate about.
“Football season wasn’t the problem. The problem was when there was nothing to do,” she said. Making sense of his loss, considering all the precautions that had been taken, is still a tough pill to swallow.
“To be honest, it’s kind of hard because the people he was with were people that I knew and trusted to be with him, so that’s the hard part. You think you know who your kids are around and their background, but sometimes it’s not all the way what you think it is.”
This week, Frazier started nursing school at Indiana Wesleyan. She was previously in school for counseling but took a break to focus on her children two months before Dijon was killed. Her experience in the hospital after his shooting inspired her to explore a different path.
“I was in the hospital (with Dijon) for two weeks, and just seeing the nurses and their compassion … it wasn’t about a check for them, it wasn’t about a job, it was the compassion they had for my son. When he passed, everyone was emotional, and I’ve never seen doctors or nurses react the way they did when they lost him. … It was love, and that’s what I want to do. The next person may need somebody like me that’s been there.”
For other parents, Frazier stressed the importance of keeping young people active and busy in things like extracurriculars or a summer job. She also added that stricter curfews might help.
“I don’t know what else I could have done. Like I said, knowing who they’re around and knowing what they’re doing, but I think the curfew was a little late,” she said. “He was 18, so really he didn’t have a (legal) curfew, but he had one at home. At first it was 12 a.m., and then for him being who he is and not getting into trouble, I stretched it to 2 a.m., but I think that (midnight) is late for any child that’s still in the household,” she said. “If I look at that, maybe if I made it 11:30 p.m., maybe this wouldn’t have happened, because there’s nothing to do at night … it’s just trouble.
“It’s hard because you don’t want to keep them tied down, but … these days, you have to.”
