My mom and dad were 'helicopter parents,' literally. Meaning, I

"My mom and dad were 'helicopter parents,' literally. Meaning, I didn't have a nanny, so I went up in the helicopter. My entire early childhood education consisted of tagging along while they reported on car accidents, multiple-alarm fires, and shootouts." Thus spoke Katy Tur, a journalist whose life began not in a classroom of books, but in the open air — high above the earth, amidst the smoke and sirens of the world below. Her words, while humorous in tone, are rich with symbolism, carrying lessons about the formation of identity, the inheritance of purpose, and the strange beauty of growing up amid chaos.

Tur’s reflection is more than a tale of an unusual childhood; it is a testament to the world that raises us, and how it imprints upon our spirit. Her parents, Bob Tur and Marika Gerrard, were pioneering journalists in Los Angeles, known for being the first to use a helicopter for breaking news coverage. They literally soared above disaster, seeking to capture truth from the sky. In this world of fire and frenzy, young Katy was not shielded — she was shaped. As she says, “I didn’t have a nanny, so I went up in the helicopter.” The skies were her cradle, and the real world — its dangers, its disasters, its drama — became her classroom.

There is something profoundly ancient in this — for in all ages, the child of courage learns not through comfort but through witness. Just as the sons of warriors once grew strong by watching their fathers in battle, so too did Katy Tur’s spirit awaken amid the roaring blades of the helicopter. While other children learned from soft voices and painted alphabets, she learned from flames and sirens, from the immediacy of truth unfolding. It was an early apprenticeship in the art of awareness — to see the world as it is, unfiltered, unsheltered. This is the root of the journalist’s calling, and Tur, without realizing it, was born into its service.

The ancients would have called such a childhood a forging. For the soul that grows near danger learns both resilience and empathy. It is no wonder that Tur became a journalist herself — the same instinct that drove her parents, that hunger for truth in motion, lived on in her. Like Hephaestus, the god who forged in fire, she was molded by heat and chaos into strength. The helicopter of her youth becomes, in this sense, a metaphor for perspective: she learned to look down upon the vastness of human struggle, to see patterns in the storm, and to translate them for others. The sky gave her both distance and clarity — a dual gift for any seeker of truth.

But her words also carry a note of humor, and in that humor, humility. “Helicopter parents” — a modern phrase for overprotective guardians — becomes, in her case, literal and ironic. Yet even as she jokes, she reveals a deeper truth: that love takes many forms. Her parents’ way of caring was not through safety, but through inclusion. They did not hide her from their dangerous world — they brought her into it. And perhaps, in their imperfect way, they taught her something priceless: that to live fully is to engage with reality, not to flee from it.

History is filled with such stories — of those who, born amid turmoil, grew into greatness. Consider Winston Churchill, who as a boy watched the British Empire at its height, yet also its fragility. He absorbed the noise of war and the weight of history, and in time, those lessons became his strength. So too with Katy Tur: what might have seemed chaos in youth became her compass in adulthood. She learned not to fear the storm, but to fly through it.

So, my child, learn this from her words: the environment that shapes you is not your destiny, but your foundation. Even if you are raised amid noise and confusion, take from it what is noble — awareness, resilience, purpose. Do not curse the storms that raised you; they taught you to navigate the sky. Whether you were nurtured in stillness or in fire, use those beginnings as wings, not chains. For every childhood, however imperfect, contains the seeds of destiny — and it is through embracing, not escaping, your origins that you learn to soar.

For as Katy Tur’s life teaches, we are all passengers in the helicopter of our upbringing, circling the world’s dangers and wonders alike. What matters is not whether we faced calm skies or storms, but whether we learned to see — to observe, to understand, to carry forward the wisdom of our journey. And when we, too, look down upon the world, may we do so not with fear or judgment, but with the same courage and clarity that once lifted her above the fires of her youth.