Illustration by Trịnh Lập

by Nguyễn Thiên Anh

It is understandable that most parents love and worry about their adult children regardless of their age, but sometimes this love turns into a form of control, causing frustration for their children.

Many children who are above 18 years old in Việt Nam are still under the control of domineering parents, which leads them to feel uncomfortable in their parents’ home.

“Helicopter” parents are parents who hover over their children’s lives and pay excessive attention to their children, especially their education. This amount of tight control often leads their children to feel frustrated at not being more in control of their own lives.

This form of parenting is common in Việt Nam, as many parents forbid their adult children to do many things that they think will be bad for them.

Over the years, many young adults in Việt Nam have shared stories on local media and social media of how their parents tightly control their curfew, so they are unable to make their own schedules, even though they are old enough to do so.

One university student says that she has a 9pm curfew, so she cannot hang out with her friends or partake in outdoor recreational activities in the evening. While she understands that her parents are just worried for her, she still feels frustrated by the early curfew.

As a 24-year-old adult, I have also been tightly controlled by my parents. There have been many times when I have to ask my parents for permission to go out and hang out with my friends, and they ask me many questions about where I am going, what I will be doing there and who I will be with. And while I’m out, they continue to text or call me to find out what is happening there. I am not even free to wear whatever I want.

My friends also have similar problems, mostly girls. One of them who is also 24 is even more tightly controlled than I am: she is not allowed to talk to men, has a very early curfew, and is not even allowed to ride in a Grab taxi by herself (in fact, quite a few of my acquaintances also face this particular hindrance).

Lê Việt Anh, 26, tells Việt Nam News that while his parents do not control him as tightly as my friends’ parents control them, he is not allowed to stay overnight at a friend’s place, and his parents often pester him whenever he does something that they deem to be “too dangerous”, such as riding a motorbike in heavy rain or travelling across provinces on motorbike.

“I completely understand that my parents are just worried about me, and obviously doing things like travelling by motorbike across provinces do carry a certain amount of risk, but it is very annoying to be watched over like a kid, while other people my age can do this stuff freely,” Anh says.

Anh’s opinion is shared by many people, including my friends and me. We all know that our parents just want the best for us, but it does not make our strict and controlling environment feel better to live in.

Nguyễn An Khánh, 30, tells Việt Nam News that this is a part of the culture of Asian parenting, and thus is something that she just accepts. Her parents can also be very controlling, and she feels envious of her friends when she sees that they have more freedom. Nevertheless, she perceives this as her parents’ way of showing love.

This type of parenting is somewhat annoying at best, and downright disastrous at worst, since many young adults now cannot do anything without their parents and they have never developed the skills to take care of themselves. For example, a 30-year-old woman has told local media that her parents have controlled her so much that it wears down her confidence and she is not allowed to do anything, so she depends on her parents and cannot take care of her children by herself.

This is not only a problem in Việt Nam, but is a problem around the world. For example, one online post on a Hong Kong discussion forum talks about a 30-year-old man in Hong Kong with a controlling mother, who always wants to know where he is and who he is with. She even video calls him when he hangs out with friends and asks for their phone numbers because she wants to check his location.

Young adults need to have their own lives and more freedom to try things, and their parents should trust them to make good decisions.

While it is still important for parents to offer advice to children, I think parents also need to be friends with their children as well by listening to them and trying to create a comfortable home environment.

Parents do not need to manage their children’s lives so tightly. For example, wanting to know when their children will come home is reasonable, but pressing them on every small detail about their business outside is not.

Anh says that parents of adult children do not need to worry so much that they will mess up or do things “incorrectly”; they should let their children do things by themselves, learn from their mistakes, if any, and take responsibility for their actions (as long as it’s nothing too dangerous) rather than trying to make them do everything the “right” way.

After all, love should not be about controlling, it should be about caring and bringing happiness into other people’s lives. — VNS