Helicopter parents and their presence out of control?

[Anonymous]

People gain confidence and self respect from overcoming considerable amounts of discomfort. The plowing of the road by the parents is short sighted and damaging.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Young people’s brains do not fully develop until age 26. After age 26, they are finally capable of making sound, adult, decisions.

Before that age, our children need our guidance; it’s as simple as that.

I’m not going to apologize for being a good parent.

Lol, at 26 I had already finished grad school, had a job and one kid. You can function independently with a prefrontal cortex still developing

Are you 80? I know no one who had a baby at that age unless it was an accident from generations subsequent to my grandparents.

NP stupid comment. And apparently you don’t spend much time in the current world. Having kids when younger is on trend. Old moms are out

You’re wrong; the age of motherhood is still rising as of this year. Also, teen pregnancy rates are down. This information is easily verifiable.
Your comment is stupid and wrong.

Reading comp is not your strong suit apparently. I didn’t say that there aren’t any older parents but rather having children younger has become trendy among a class of people who you might have expected to wait like they did in older generations. See trad wife trend among UMC families etc

Trad wife isn’t UMC. It is MC all the way.

[Anonymous]

This isn’t new. My suitemate’s parents at my Ivy League school did this back in the late 90s. They flew out monthly or more to take their kid shopping, take her out to nice meals, type her term papers, edit her term papers, write up her sources, and quiz her for exams. Sometimes they would take her friends drinking and even come to parties. She treated it like the most normal thing ever but my other suite mates and I were appalled. We had never seen anything like it and assumed she would flail after graduation. So naive of us!

She got into Yale Law School and has had a great life ever since. I had other kids on my floor who had parents stay nearby to handle laundry, food shopping, package pickup, etc. They were all super successful and confident, maybe because they knew they had a safety net and could focus on school and extracurriculars without worrying about time management or chores.

Agree with the PP who said this is a rich people problem- these were very rich people.

[Anonymous]

Imagine a kid getting a C on an exam in college and crying to mommy and daddy about it. Or a kid who has to actually go and do their own laundry on the weekend because mom and dad aren't there in an apartment they bought across town. Oh the horror.

The fact that any parents are hovering within the same city as where their kids go to college out of state is weird as hell. And here they called Republicans weird. Are these parents all republicans? Who in the hell drives or flies hundreds or thousands of miles multiple weekends just so they can be in the same vicinity as their adult aged children? Not only is it super weird, it is creepy as hell. If World War 3 ever broke out, your kids are old enough to be sent to the front lines as soldiers, yet they're not mature enough to go to college and be away from mommy and daddy for not a few weeks?

Good Lord, what a bunch of whacky parents around here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This isn’t new. My suitemate’s parents at my Ivy League school did this back in the late 90s. They flew out monthly or more to take their kid shopping, take her out to nice meals, type her term papers, edit her term papers, write up her sources, and quiz her for exams. Sometimes they would take her friends drinking and even come to parties. She treated it like the most normal thing ever but my other suite mates and I were appalled. We had never seen anything like it and assumed she would flail after graduation. So naive of us!

She got into Yale Law School and has had a great life ever since. I had other kids on my floor who had parents stay nearby to handle laundry, food shopping, package pickup, etc. They were all super successful and confident, maybe because they knew they had a safety net and could focus on school and extracurriculars without worrying about time management or chores.

Agree with the PP who said this is a rich people problem- these were very rich people.

Well, I mean that's also why the ivies produce a bunch of weirdos.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Three cousins all went to bigger Southern schools. They were raised by Gen X parents. One set of parents quite literally bought an apartment where the daughter goes to school so they could attend all of the football home games. They say they give their daughter space and don't sit next to her at the games, but they quite literally fly in every single weekend there is home game at the school where the D goes. Same for the other 2 cousins. Parents bought a house in the city where the S goes to attend all of the games. They also go down to the city where their other D goes all the time, like probably 15+ weekends during a school year.

Is it just a common these days for parents to be so clingy? These kinds of helicopter parents were unheard of when I was in school. Who wants to go to college and have their parents even remotely close to them for the whole weekends for 85% of the academic year?

I live in an area where there are lots of people who follow a religion that happens to be very popular in the Middle East. Almost all of the young people live with their parents & do whatever their parents tell them until they get married. That’s a heck of a lot more clingy than going to a few football games per year. But that’s the way they roll. It’s all “relative.”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Three cousins all went to bigger Southern schools. They were raised by Gen X parents. One set of parents quite literally bought an apartment where the daughter goes to school so they could attend all of the football home games. They say they give their daughter space and don't sit next to her at the games, but they quite literally fly in every single weekend there is home game at the school where the D goes. Same for the other 2 cousins. Parents bought a house in the city where the S goes to attend all of the games. They also go down to the city where their other D goes all the time, like probably 15+ weekends during a school year.

Is it just a common these days for parents to be so clingy? These kinds of helicopter parents were unheard of when I was in school. Who wants to go to college and have their parents even remotely close to them for the whole weekends for 85% of the academic year?

I live in an area where there are lots of people who follow a religion that happens to be very popular in the Middle East. Almost all of the young people live with their parents & do whatever their parents tell them until they get married. That’s a heck of a lot more clingy than going to a few football games per year. But that’s the way they roll. It’s all “relative.”

Yes. And science now tells us the human brain does not mature until age 26.

Science it real.

[Anonymous]

I went to college in the 90s and we used to give one of my roommates a hard time because her mom called her every single day. We thought that was so weird. The rest of us rarely saw or spoke to our parents. But we all still have good relationships with them now as adults.

[Anonymous]

I used to have a handful of college rental houses right off campus. Zero frills just solid and safe older houses. The students used to group up, find them, sign their own leases, fix things they broke. They were happy, funny, adventurous and cool to know. I felt like I was providing half their education with a place they could learn how to manage and grow. They became totally independent.

That all changed in the early 2000’s. I sold the last house last year. I hate the parents and the kids have very few redeeming qualities.

[Anonymous]

One of the parent Facebook groups I’m on has a discussion about what private jet rental company to use to get students back and forth to college.

Not an Ivy and I refuse to say what college it is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:One of the parent Facebook groups I’m on has a discussion about what private jet rental company to use to get students back and forth to college.

Not an Ivy and I refuse to say what college it is.

Wonder how many kids actual get there by helicopter.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This has been happening for a decade. I used to work in a University. The big shift in parental involvement ramped up when tuition skyrocketed. To parents, this is one of the largest financial investments they will make. The more expensive college gets, the more parents expect.

Housing at some schools is a real issue so more parents with means are buying investment condos or houses. Honestly, if DS ends up going to the school in the city we are looking to retire in we will likely buy our retirement house before we need it and let him live there or buy one with an ADU / space for ADU and work remotely/ commute back. It would save around 40 K a year.

This is no doubt part of it. I have a college freshman and I’m on one of the FB groups and there’s a lot of useful info but also some parents over sharing w/o submitting an anonymous post. But, yes, the money is an issue. There was a recent thread that I commented on about the state of the bathroom in the dorms upon move-in. There was one post on it from an “anti-helicopter” parent chastising the thread and saying what’s college w/o dealing with a dirty bathroom or something like that. But, frankly, I’m paying a heck of a lot of money for the bathrooms to have been dirty before anyone was even in the building and do expect they’ll be cleaned regularly since that’s part of what I am paying for. Same can be said about decent food.

I also think sometimes you don’t know a person’s situation and need to give them grace. There’s one dad on the FB page that seems really over involved. I have to admit I googled him and quickly realized his wife died after an illness not long ago, so, he’s clearly a grieving widower trying to be both mom and dad.

You don’t know which kids have had an eating disorder or other mental or physical health issues, etc…

There are some extreme situations but most people are just doing the best they can.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I went to college in the 90s and we used to give one of my roommates a hard time because her mom called her every single day. We thought that was so weird. The rest of us rarely saw or spoke to our parents. But we all still have good relationships with them now as adults.

We did not have smart phones in the 90's. We were waiting in line in the common area to use our calling cards for our Sun. night calls. Not the same when you can just call, FT, text, etc.

Additionally, very few ppl on here are advocating parents calling every day. So stop with that.

Lastly, I do not look to my Boomer parents' parenting as some ideal to live up to.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This isn’t new. My suitemate’s parents at my Ivy League school did this back in the late 90s. They flew out monthly or more to take their kid shopping, take her out to nice meals, type her term papers, edit her term papers, write up her sources, and quiz her for exams. Sometimes they would take her friends drinking and even come to parties. She treated it like the most normal thing ever but my other suite mates and I were appalled. We had never seen anything like it and assumed she would flail after graduation. So naive of us!

She got into Yale Law School and has had a great life ever since. I had other kids on my floor who had parents stay nearby to handle laundry, food shopping, package pickup, etc. They were all super successful and confident, maybe because they knew they had a safety net and could focus on school and extracurriculars without worrying about time management or chores.

Agree with the PP who said this is a rich people problem- these were very rich people.

This. A friend's kid just transferred out of Boston College. She said her kid (among other reasons for leaving) was the "poor kid" but they are not poor. Parents were coming every weekend, taking kids out for expensive dinners and buying designer bags and clothes for their kids. Buying anything they needed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This has been happening for a decade. I used to work in a University. The big shift in parental involvement ramped up when tuition skyrocketed. To parents, this is one of the largest financial investments they will make. The more expensive college gets, the more parents expect.

Housing at some schools is a real issue so more parents with means are buying investment condos or houses. Honestly, if DS ends up going to the school in the city we are looking to retire in we will likely buy our retirement house before we need it and let him live there or buy one with an ADU / space for ADU and work remotely/ commute back. It would save around 40 K a year.

This is no doubt part of it. I have a college freshman and I’m on one of the FB groups and there’s a lot of useful info but also some parents over sharing w/o submitting an anonymous post. But, yes, the money is an issue. There was a recent thread that I commented on about the state of the bathroom in the dorms upon move-in. There was one post on it from an “anti-helicopter” parent chastising the thread and saying what’s college w/o dealing with a dirty bathroom or something like that. But, frankly, I’m paying a heck of a lot of money for the bathrooms to have been dirty before anyone was even in the building and do expect they’ll be cleaned regularly since that’s part of what I am paying for. Same can be said about decent food.

I also think sometimes you don’t know a person’s situation and need to give them grace. There’s one dad on the FB page that seems really over involved. I have to admit I googled him and quickly realized his wife died after an illness not long ago, so, he’s clearly a grieving widower trying to be both mom and dad.

You don’t know which kids have had an eating disorder or other mental or physical health issues, etc…

There are some extreme situations but most people are just doing the best they can.

The more you all stomp your heels and demand to get what you paid for, the higher the prices will go.