<p>Jessie, both parents were born in 1963, good enough for you?</p>
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<p>I know what you mean! S came home for a weekend this May after his first year at college. He is spending the summer living near campus while working at a coffee shop that requires 5:30 a.m. start times. When asked how he was doing now, he said: “I’ve never been so happy to just be working full-time.” !!</p>
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<p>I did the same thing as you and so did most of my friends. I’m amazed how some parents involve themselves with the college selection/application process to the degree where it basically smothers their child’s ability to make any decisions. When are the parents that do this going to let go? At some point they’re going to have to accept they can only provide suggestions and some limited amount of guidance rather than making every decision in their children’s lives. I would have thought that college stuff was a fairly natural place for even the helicopter parents to depart, but apparently not.</p>
<p>I went to Penn State orientation last week. My parents said that at one of the housing Q&A sessions for parents one mother asked if there was any way she could be notified if her daughter was coming home at an inappropriate time such as 2 a.m. I do not know how the housing guy managed to keep a straight face answering the question.</p>
<p>At the scheduling session, which was in a computer lab and was once parents and students got back together, one set of parents was determining their child’s entire schedule for them. They had already done all the research and had the exact schedule planned out. The parent, not the student, sat at the computer and entered the schedule. I’d have hated to be the student or one of the faculty members/students that were helping everyone schedule.</p>
<p>Obviously these parents must think they’re helping their kids and could not begin to think that they could be causing any harm. Did this kind of thing exist (at least to these extremes) in previous generations?</p>
<p>My parents have not told me to do homework since like 4th, 5th grade. I have been left to do all school things on my own, and it worked great. I have never needed anyone to teach me time management.</p>
<p>I give my parents a lot of credit in that they do not decide things for me, but simply offer there advice. As for college, I did the whole process on my own. Perhaps more parents should adopt this style. Just let the kids make stupid mistakes, as I have. Then just offer your wisdom as how to handle the situation better. </p>
<p>O yea, it is ironic in that many of the most ambitious independent students are on this site while many of the most overprotective (not sure what the right word is) are all on this site. Sorry to those parents who are not like this on this site, it is a generalization I know.</p>
<p>Going out on a limb here, I’d like to add to what someone said earlier about how all of this ties to the suburbanization in America</p>
<p><strong>Why, we have Hovering parents and overbooked summers:</strong>
People started to flee to the suburbs some time ago; they called it the “white flight” because only the richest people, ie white people, could afford to live in the suburbs. They fled not because of crime, but because of the increased reporting OF crime and violent crime. So the sensationalist media is partly to blame.</p>
<p>So now we’re all hiding out in the suburbs and afraid of our neighbors, all of whom must either be pedophiles or meth dealers. We may still talk to our neighbors, but the neighborhoods where kids run around and only come home when it’s dark are dwindling. Parents screen who their kids play with–the so called “play dates”</p>
<p>We’re also becoming self-absorbed. Talking to people in elevators is a waste of time–we’ll never see them again anyway. Everyone hides in their own little ipod world. These days people only talk and chat during structured activities like track (hs students) or a yoga class (our parents). Thus the rise in structured activities–it’s the only way people meet others these days, and parents know this. </p>
<p>Then kids get older, and their parents want them to be successful. The kids are sent to dozens of camps to improve magnet school and college applications. This is the unintended consequence of living in America: people are constantly trying to improve their station in life. This is not a bad thing, but it leads to what I call the academic arms race: one kid goes to a 2 week summer camp and a month long internship? Well, then I’ll go to a 4 week summer camp and a two-month long internship!</p>
<p>So, kids are “overbooked” with summers that are packed to the gills. That’s the price you pay for wanting to go to a good college–I could get guaranteed admission to my state school with a simple 3.2 gpa and 1800 SAT, but I choose not to. I enjoy my summers-- for 8 of the 10 weeks I’m doing an internship, and I’m looking for something to do for the last two weeks–maybe job shadowing. </p>
<p>My generation and I, we get bored easily, so I try to put it to good use.</p>
<p>Excellent post, billybobbyk.</p>
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<p>This is one of the most perfect descriptions of the reasons for my disgust with contemporary American culture that I’ve ever read.</p>
<p>The more I think about it, the more I come to conclude that there is one thing that is almost exclusively to blame for this cocooning phenomenon: TV in every home. The **** box is the bane of western civilization. </p>
<p>I wonder how things would have turned out if the internet were invented first. Much better, I suspect.</p>
<p>Eh. South Texas doesn’t have much hovering. What do we hover over?</p>
<p>Yes, kids today are more pampered than ever. When I tell them about my living situation, people are liike “woah”</p>
<p>One last thing, I hate it when people react to things like this by saying “me and these people aren’t like this…”</p>
<p>Yes people, we get it. You aren’t like that. It’s a generalization. But hell, eventually, we have to form a generalization, dont’ we? We don’t have enough researchs to build a scenario for every person.</p>
<p>But there isn’t any research to begin with!</p>
<p>The problem with the piece is that they take a few anecdotes and turn it into a societal trend. They haven’t polled three thousand people and figured out what most people are like; they just assume that, because two people they know are acting like this, that everyone is doing it.</p>
<p>Let’s examine our evidence. Some students died when they crossed a frozen river, so other students are told not to do it. Ergo, it must be a generation that is so out-of-touch that we need to be told everything. Um, no.</p>
<p>“it must be a generation that is so out-of-touch that we need to be told everything. Um, no.” Agree.</p>
<p>I think it’s not just this generation. Some people seem to have a problem taking the knowledge they have gained through education and the experience of others and translating it into real life. And for some people, rules and guidelines and warnings just do not apply.</p>
<p>College kids who have never seen a frozen river because they come from places that never freeze may think they can cross just because it <em>looks</em> solid. Maybe in this case, a stern warning from the universities is necessary. But, more adult snowmobilers ignore written warnings and go through the ice on the lakes here every year than kids on the Charles.</p>
<p>How long have your drycleaning bags had a warning that “this bag is not a toy”? </p>
<p>How many experienced drivers have we seen try to drive through flood waters in just the past weeks?</p>
<p>Window screens are for bugs, yet kids still fall out of windows all the time. </p>
<p>Drugs are bad, alcohol is bad, smoking is bad, overeating is bad. Look around. </p>
<p>Standing too near the edge of the subway platform seems obvious to me, yet people fall onto the tracks.</p>
<p>Keeping hands and feet clear of the lawn mower/snow blower is all over the machines. Yet, people with age and experience sustain physical damage every year. </p>
<p>Don’t even get me started on motorcycles…</p>
<p>We raised our kids not to talk to strangers, yet “My Space” doesn’t count. We are told to “hover” over the computers of our kids or we are neglectful. (but because they actually have computers, we have spoiled them)</p>
<p>I’m tending to think that it’s multi-generational. Some people just don’t think, in general. This societal trend is making the trial lawyers rich.</p>
<p>Big Brother doesn’t (and in some cases, shouldn’t) trust us to live without hurting ourselves or others. Helicopter parents are just taking responsibility for their own.</p>
<p>I guess it helped that my parents don’t speak English so I learned to make my own decisions.</p>
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Lets get rid of all warning labels and let evolution take its course.</p>
<p>There are a lot of bitter parents on this thread, or just some very angry people. Kids HAVE been doing stupid things for ages. This generation’s parents are finally doing something about it, not being lazy and saying “Eh, kids will be kids, that guy walked over the icy Charles River and died.” Um, so this generation’s parents are going a little overboard. But that just goes to show how poor parenting was for their generation–they are reacting to the disturbingly laissez-faire attitudes of their parents. I think our generation will have the best parents–we will not belong to either extreme.</p>
<p>johnM, maybe the tv is more of an effect than a cause of people not interacting–TVs started appearing in every home awhile ago, but they were only used for, for example, the evening news. Demand then started increasing and the number of channels and broadcast hours per day started increasing as a result of an anti-social society.</p>
<p>And as far as the internet goes, people can be as social as they want without the looming threat of embarrassing themselves because if they do something dumb, they can simply log off and block whoever they were talking to. Which is kinda neat, I guess.</p>
<p>Anyway, just a couple thoughts.</p>
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<p>Just as in politics, replacing one extreme with the other extreme is bad. The “trend” is overstated but I do not have much regard for the true, extreme helicopter parents, especially the ones who want colleges to enforce their overbearing rules for them - like the freshman at my school last year whose parents called Campus Police to say that their daughter was out touring campus with upperclassmen, and she was supposed to be back in her dorm room by 7pm every night, and could they please go get her and bring her back.</p>
<p>Now, I’m not saying that because I can cite some anecdotes, a whole generation of parents is like this. But there are plenty who are, and they need to chill out. Period. Their behavior is ridiculous and would turn their kids into cases of arrested development if the kids actually complied with the parents’ rules.</p>
<p>So you all think the parents of girls in the Victorian age weren’t protective?</p>
<p>Some parents whom we might label overprotective may feel forced into that stance by what they perceive as the total lack of appropriate parenting by so many people these days.</p>
<p>An example from my own experience: I was totally fine with letting my son attend the middle school dance. When I found out there were girls there selling dirty dances, I was suitably appalled but was still willing to let him attend if he wanted because it seemed the chaperones had dealt with the situation. It wasn’t until I had heard several conversations about the incident among groups of parents on the soccer field the day after that I began to truly worry. I had expected the other parents would have been just as appalled as I was that there were girls as young as 11 or 12 willing to prostitute themselves in this way. (FYI, I live in a relatively affluent area so it’s not as if there was an economic need for this behavior.) On the contrary, no one seemed at all concerned and rather thought it was funny. They joked about female entrepreneurs and about giving their boys extra money before the next dance. I couldn’t help but wonder how funny they’d find it if several years from now if their cavalier attitude contributed to a teen pregnancy. </p>
<p>Am I a conservative prude? Maybe, but I didn’t realize I was so alone. That experience taught me I couldn’t necessarily count on the good sense of other parents to help me keep my children safe. When I was growing up, I think my parents would have been able to count on most other parents to share their opinions. Not all, but most.</p>
<p>TheGFG: “They joked about female entrepreneurs and about giving their boys extra money before the next dance.” </p>
<p>Good grief!! I’m appalled at both the girls and the boys. These are middle school CHILDREN. Where are chaperones? What goes at high school dances?</p>
<p>Teen pregnancy is easier to handle than a son who is one of a group of rowdy boys who hire a dancer and have their lives ruined when she decides to make accusations.</p>
<p>I heard a story at lunch today that I think shows an extreme case of helicopter parenting. Two seniors have been taking a duel credit government class at the local cc. They get hs credit as well as college credit. They had a project due in the class, and they decided to do it together. Unfortunately for them, it wasn’t a “group project” and they both recieved 0’s from the professor for cheating. The kids went home and told their moms who then called the professor to try to mediate the situation. The cc professor basically told the moms, NO WAY, the 0 stands, that the kids are taking a COLLEGE course and that they aren’t in elementary school anymore. Those poor moms really thought that if they picked up the phone and called the teacher that he might change the grade for their kids. Well, they all learned a painful, but valuable lesson. OUCH, F on the transcript!</p>
<p>It would be really hard to find a situation where it’s appropriate for parents rather than a student to contact a college professor. At least the prof had enough nerve to resist the parents’ attempts to “mediate” the situation.</p>
<p>Good. One thing this generation lacks is this concept of responsibility. I believe that you take full responsibility for your actions. All this avant garde psychology crap of bad parenting or ‘its society’s fault’ or root causes of crime, etc, etc is total garbage. The individual is finally responsible for what he does. I think thats important.</p>