Helicopter Parenting

This all began a little more than six months ago. My three-year-old daughter and I were driving from our house in Washington, D.C., to her preschool in Northern Virginia. It was a cool day, Donald Trump had not yet been elected president, and the whole city seemed addled by the jittery senility emanating from the White House. We were trapped in Key Bridge traffic. I looked down at the river, a famously languid expanse of swamp, at that moment moving faster than our car. We were going to be late. In the back seat, my daughter began whining.