Reply to Purdue President’s Op-Ed

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]He’s obviously not wrong but 1) there’s nothing unique about his message, I recently read How to Raise an Adult, similar vibe, he’s covering well trodden ground, 2) calling out mothers when he even goes on to note it’s fathers too seems to be rather sexist, 3) it’s an odd article to run on Mother’s Day weekend, which I guess is as much the WP’s decision as Daniels, 4) I think the use of the really over the top examples dilutes the overall message - most people are not impersonating their kids.

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Citing a handful of egregious examples, that no one defends, over years of overseeing literally tens of thousands of students and parents, does not make him “not wrong” or “right” on the op Ed as whole — for which he’s egregiously wrong. [/quote]

I’m the PP and that’s a fair point. I guess I was just trying to acknowledge this over parenting thing comes up enough that there’s obviously something going on with it these days but I totally agree with you, and it’s just snide and mean spirited on Mothers Day weekend. I actually didn’t love How to Raise an Adult for similar reasons, the book isn’t sexist but it relies on over the top examples to make its points.[/quote]

There's scholarly evidence that the kinds of overparenting described in the op-ed are problematic, but I haven't seen anything except these kinds of random commentaries and pop psychologist assertions  about its prevalence without any numbers.  I am unsure on whether or not it's far more prevalent than it used to be.  I think we just see a lot of over-the-top examples in social media that we never had access to before and pop psychologists know parenting critiques sell.  This is the same genre who warned against 'refrigerator moms' causing autism, delved into a lot of pseudo-Freudian crud, and has for centuries spouted as truth a whole lot of nonsense mixed in with some sense.  So moms are all led to believe that we're all doing too much helicoptering, but all people will cite are the less than 1% of moms they have experienced doing crazy s**t.

In some ways, parents used to control far more of  adolescent's/early adult children's big life decisions in generations past-- parents often chose whether you went to college or not, what college, what your major was etc.  Parents exerted a lot more resistance to your moving away from the neighborhood, on maintaining religious ties etc.   A lot of people were coerced into the family business.  Fathers were asked for their daughter's hands in marriage.  I have two aunts who were expected to live with their parents until they got married who only finally moved out on their own in their 50s.  While people used to take on adult roles sooner in generations past, they also often didn't have a lot of freedom in those roles. The flavor of exerting parental control has changed over the years to be sure, but I'm not convinced the magnitude has.  In some ways some parents might be doing these crazy anxious things because they have less control than prior generations. 
  
Just as I'm sure the extreme examples of overparenting are problematic, I'm not sure leaving 18 year olds on their own as they figure out 'what they want to do' as they are taking difficult courses, juggling mental health issues, dealing with crappy college technical infrastructure and accruing debt at expensive private universities like Purdue is in their best interests.  I haven't been that involved yet in my own college-aged kid's school life (never called anyone at the school yet and he's a junior)  but he's consulted with me on course scheduling, on finding housing, on housing lease issues, on some relationship concerns, dealing with a bank error, with health insurance questions and the like.  He knows how to cook, shop, do laundry.  He's long had a part-time job.  I worry that he hasn't thought too much about careers, isn't that proactive about internships so I text event notices I see from his college to him.  Most of the parents I know are similar in their involvement.  I think we represent the norm, and I think we are fairly reasonable.  I think Purdue's president is cherry-picking examples to make a sexist point.

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