Non-parents often think that parenting styles are distinct, inscrutable categories that can’t have any overlaps. Crunchy moms homeschool their children and shield them from screens, outsiders, and foods that don’t come from the earth. Permissive parents let every act of misbehaving slide because they’re too lazy to correct any behavior. Or worse yet, they prioritize validating their kid’s feelings over correcting lousy behavior every single time. Neglectful parents fail to provide either basic needs like food and a safe home, or they persistently fail to meet their kid’s emotional needs, giving very little support and expressing little love. 

If you know anything about parenting, you know that good and bad parents fall into many arbitrary and incredibly salient categories. Adult children recently took to Twitter to discuss a shockingly common combination: negligent helicopter parents. You would think that constant surveillance would cancel out the possibility of neglect, but that’s where you’d be wrong.