My wife and I love our children. As with all parents, our love is as deep as it is unconditional.

My oldest son is a senior in high school, and while we share the same hopes for him, a life of fulfillment and happiness, we have very different fears.

My wife's fear: he will move out and never come back.

My fear: he never moves out and won't stop coming back.

To be clear, the evidence suggests that my fear is more grounded in reality than hers.

Reports of grown males returning home to live with their moms were rampant, even pre-pandemic. These semi-adult barista wannabee slackers are seemingly content being by mommy's side and having their every needs met.

In a recent article in Defector Magazine, author Sabrina Imbler states, "It is certainly easy to shame these large adult sons for being a lifelong burden to their mothers, for being too big and bulky to get their own food."

These snowflake offspring have grown too fat and lazy to fend for themselves and are blissfully living by mommy's side, living in a world that has lost sight of what it means to be an adult male.

Oh - I should share something. We're not talking about humans; we're talking about adult male Orca whales. But, the article's author elaborates on what she sees as similarities between adult males and their underwater counterparts.

Let me just say, as an adult male who loves his mom, HER WORDS HURT.

"Perhaps these whales remind us of our human sons, who do not pull their weight, behave as if they were still children, and are a burden to their mothers."

It turns out that these behemoth yuppy guppies have grown so large that they can't swim fast enough to catch their own prey. So, mom catches the salmon, bites it in half, and feeds it to her son. Talk about a free lunch! Or, as my AMAZING but slightly over-protective wife and willing 7th-grade son call it, Tuesday!

Interestingly, whether on land or at sea, this phenomenon exists only in males.

Several months ago, I wrote about the difference between boys and girls and its impact on music. That's not what this is about. This blog is a continuation of last week's blog about pursuing perfection.

Parenting is hard. Knowing when to nurture or nature, hug or hold, repudiate or remediate, is not easy. Me? As a parent and a teacher, I vacillate between helicopter and hell-bent.

As I said, parenting is hard. And musical parenting is not any easier.

As a "helicopter," I sometimes "babied" my students - I spoon-fed their parts instead of making them woodshed on their own. I will also confess that from time to time, I choose works that were not challenging enough, thinking, "I can make them sound good on this pretty quickly." At one time or another, I may have chosen a festival/competition/event where I knew my students would shine.

As a "hell-bent," sometimes I over-programmed and pushed too hard. I rode roughshod over kids in rehearsal because I bit off more than the students could chew. I submitted tapes for things we (I) weren't ready for and chose literature I wanted to conduct versus what they were prepared to play.

Yes, the accessible literature provided a welcome break and a chance to really shape a phrase and laugh at a joke. Conversely, there were moments when my students achieved things I did not think they could.

There's virtue in both approaches, and the argument over achievement versus growth is as old as the profession itself.

What's the proper balance point? Where's the line in the sand? What will work for every child?

I can't say that I know.

I do know that (musical) parenting is hard, and there are no formulas or one size fits all solutions. We need balance, humility, and integrity, even when we get it wrong.

Remember, from humpback to helicopter, not even nature gets it right every time.

- Scott