I rarely saw my actual son who went to the university in our town! He lived on campus and then in an off campus apartment and was determined to be as independent as his brothers who went further away, although one only went 45 minutes away but I rarely saw him either. Maybe my area needs a service where I could rent a needy college student. LOL. I preached responsibility and independence when they were growing up so despite occasional jealousy I was ok with it.
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Thinking I could use a surrogate mom even if they’re younger than me…
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I don’t know, maybe it’s a Gen Z cultural thing?
I was fortunate that I had teachers in high school who saw potential in me. They groomed me and taught me about what a college experience would do for me.
I was a poor, broke kid being bussed to an upper-middle class, white neighborhood.
I was exposed to trauma every single day in my barrio. That made me more anxious to want to get out.
I learned to write checks. I learned to budget my money. I learned how to finally work in study teams. I learned how each task became easier if you and your friends helped each other out: Putting up posters, making bookcases out of bricks and old crates, etc.
I learned how to ask questions. I learned how to ask for help when I was stuck. Most of the time I just problem solved.
When I was supervising grad students, I made sure they did most of the work themselves. I was always in the background to help. I had to teach them how to ask questions. Each of them thought that it was a weakness to ask questions. I had to teach them how to ask questions.
Each of them said they were glad that the manner in which I supervised them helped them to become exceptional employees.
My traumas and experiences helped me to graduate through undergrad and grad school. Was it easy? No, it never is, but it helped me to prepare our children to become self-sufficient and self reliant.
I don’t have a problem with that because I know they will always be employed and be a valuable asset.
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I describe my parenting as benign neglect. I still haven’t seen any of my kids’ applications, they were in charge of test scores, signups, transcripts, signing up for visits, pretty much everything. And crossed my fingers. They can ask me for favors and u usually say yes, but they’re not asking for much. I recently renewed my 30 year old’s car registration as a birthday gift. She hates all things paperwork plus works a million hours a week. One year I renewed her passport as a gift.
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My son tore all of the ligaments in his shoulder in England, study abroad, 3 hours by bus from London. His friend ubered him back to their apartment after surgery. Didn’t see him until 2 months later. Unfortunately, he broke his collarbone 3 months ago, same spot, due to the previous surgery, the orthopedist finally operated since it never healed at all in b it’s own. Glad he’s here this time around.
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I agree with your husband.
And it’s not just the irritation that simple tasks seem beyond some members of this generation (although that IS irritating). It’s the hoopla that goes with their lifestyles.
They can Yelp for 45 minutes before deciding where to get a takeout sandwich or a delivery for lunch, and then meticulously document said lunch (photo of the bag/cardboard box, photo of the containers of condiments) for their “feed”. Hey young adult- just eat lunch and then get back to what you are getting paid to do. Every morsel or calorie does not need to be documented for posterity. They’ve all got different What’s App groups for every facet of their lives and some of it is just a mystery. You need your What’s App connections to weigh in before you return a sweater and pair of sneakers to Amazon- “Are the lines shorter at Whole Foods or at the UPS store if I go at 8 am on Friday?” Hey, you seem to return a LOT of stuff to Amazon, haven’t you figured out what time the lines are the shortest by now?
I know a bunch of early 20-somethings who don’t seem to delight in “adulting” the way previous 20 somethings did.
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Get off my lawn!!
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My daughter just started at a LAC and I am part of a parent Facebook group for her class. I have already seen two people offer their services as a “parent stand-in” for a fee.
Apparently, this is a thing.
I also see parents asking questions about things on Facebook in a way that shows that they are clearly trying to solve “101” level problems for their kids. Not good.
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Yes, I also see those “101” questions from parents in the college parents group after they drop their kids off that raise my eyebrows:
- Student can’t get on the college wifi, who do I call??
- Son doesn’t have a printer, does the school charge for printing?? Where can he go?
- Are there classes on Labor Day? Daughter says there are, I said I don’t think there so, and that I would check.
- Son doesn’t know how to use his ID in the dining hall, can you explain the meal plan to me so I can help him out??
Not only are the answers to all of those questions on the website (both parents and students have it), and all that information was covered in the student’s orientation, but moreover—they’re all questions and scenarios which the student can just handle it if they just go talk to someone.
Can’t get on the wifi in the dorm? What have they tried? Is their roommate on? Other people on her floor? Did you ask how they did it? Did they ask their R.A for advice.? Did they go to tech services?
There are so many options for the student to solve this, but the parents asking this question about who they (the parents )can call to “handle this” for their student say they’re doing this because their student is “stressed out.”
These parents truly do believe they’re helping, but they’re instead teaching their kids that deep down they are not very capable individuals, that they’re actually right to feel helpless when encountering a challenge, and that experiencing discomfort or uncertainty is “toxic” or “trauma” or “damaging,” and you should call your parents right away so that you don’t feel an uncomfortable feeling. Because you can’t handle it.
Do I think there are times when parents can and should provide mentoring or coaching style advice or help? Absolutely! Asking kids what they’ve tried so far, asking them what they might try next, helping them learn how to problem solve. Giving them advice on how to navigate situations, but not navigating the situation for them.
But taking on tasks that a student should be figuring out on their own, denies those students the ability to grow and actually get better at figuring things out on their own.
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What I don’t understand is why are you asking other parents? I don’t know the number to get things fixed, I don’t know how students get to flag football, I don’t know where printers are, I don’t know the difference between flex dollars and points, I don’t know if Starbucks takes gift cards, ask a student who lives there too.
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But they do - if they are offering a service.
And mom and dad can’t let Junior, who made no decisions at home, make them now.
THIS!!!^^^^
Yesterday, my husband came home very frustrated. A recent hire, from another company has taken a lot of time off for illness.
She never shows on Mondays or Fridays. Apparently, the local Urgent Care is kept very busy by her. She often claims she was in urgent care over the weekend.
Yesterday, was expected at a meeting and, she committed to servicing something, specifically, in her specialty.
She was supposed to be holding a meeting with heads of departments. When the meeting was supposed to occur, she wasn’t there and she hadn’t called in. Someone had to call her and find out that oh, she wasn’t feeling well.
I told my husband that she was probably hung over much like my uncle.
Uncle “Cletus” that did that.
No show on Mondays or Fridays. Hung over on Monday, and started partying on Friday.
His company knew that he did it, but it was an accepted alcoholic norm because he was valuable. Yes, he later up passed away from cirrhosis of the liver.
Husband is unfamiliar with “soft” alcoholic drinks, but he said she always has a can of something at her desk that she immediately moves when someone approaches.
Also, big clue, about work ethic, computer is always open to a shopping page.
Husband is very frustrated.
Our daughter (manager) who is not that much older than some of these employees, is very frustrated.
I get really frustrated for them.
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Maybe more of this has to do with parents. It’s not the kid hiring the service–it’s the parents. It’s not advertised for “your kid’s peace of mind”–it’s for the parent’s peace of mind. I have a friend who would’ve signed up for something like this in a heartbeat.
She did (and still does way too much) everything for her kids but not because they weren’t capable but because I think she thought she could do it better. Of course she could do better–she had 30 plus years more of experience. And her kids didn’t fight her (why would you?). Sometimes they’d protest but she didn’t listen much (still doesn’t). I KNOW she thought she was helping but she really robbed them of experiences along the way–the fun of decorating your first apartment, buying a first car, just doing things on your own on so many levels and the reward that comes from that.
It trickles to grandkids too. Guess what grandma? Let your kids learn to parent. Let them buy some of the toys. Let go.
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This is really funny. I have seen 3 of your 4 questions in the Parent Facebook group. The other frequent ones are around special dining needs and poor Verizon cell phone reception on campus.
These parents don’t realize it, but they are about to be frozen out. If a kid triggers an inappropriate parent response if they tell their parents about a problem they are having…they will just stop sharing problems with their parents.
And maybe that is for the best…
Maybe that’s the difference. In the old days we didn’t share every little problem with a parent. We only spoke once a week on a shared phone in the dorm hall and that was long distance so you kept to the basics–I’m alive, I’m going to class, I’m not sick. All is fine (even if not because you don’t want them to worry.) Call next week. In between you’ve jumped a ton of hurdles and called on friends for advice whether it was good advice or not. Only BIG stuff got a longer phone call and we tried to keep that to an absolute minimum.
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And on the flip side I’ve read plenty of stories by kids who spent a semester or year abroad saying that in retrospect the biggest takeaway wasn’t the new friends they made or remembrance of cities they visited, but the realization they could solve problems on their own; maybe not happily, maybe it was a struggle, but they could get it done. Placed in an unfamiliar culture, often initially speaking the language only at a basic level, and thousands of miles from home, they had to figure out how to fix things or find someone who could guide them.
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Hmmm. I am told that I am retired now and I am a recovering helicopter parent my kids tell me. I need some extra cash. Hmm…get some under the table money. Hmm. IRS isn’t reading this, correct 
.
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For many parents (including me), the instinct is to solve the problem, and it takes a lot of discipline to hold back. I have one kid who often just wants to be talked off the ledge (she sometimes prefaces phone calls with that caveat) and another who doesn’t let me know about a problem until it’s at Defcon 1 because she doesn’t want to worry me 
I also think about my childhood, free of cellphones and Life360 and how my friends and I would take the train into NYC on the weekends and just poke around, window shop, hit up the museums, get our fake ID’s in Times Square. We’d be gone, sometimes for 8-10 hours, with no parental contact.
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My dad and his HS buddies bought cabins on the same medium-sized lake in rural Michigan, and all us kids would spend a lot of our school breaks there. We would leave our home cabin after breakfast in the morning, and were expected to be back for dinner. It was assumed we would get lunch somewhere at one of the cabins, but we’d just do that wherever. We had boats in the summer, snowmobiles in the winter, and as soon as the state would license us we were allowed to take them out at our discretion. Same deal with cars, jeeps, trucks, and so on.
We also had BB/pellet guns early, and eventually rifles and shotguns, although those were more supervised than the BB/pellet guns. On the other hand, the fireworks we could buy out of the back of a truck in the hardware store parking lot? No one was really watching what we did with those. Or matches or lighters or knives or axes or so on.
Even in our home suburbs, kids at an early age were off on bikes, and eventually cars, spending long hours in malls and parks and movie theaters and whatever without our parents knowing where we were or who we were with or what we were doing.
I sometimes call this the “acceptable loss rate” era, like I feel the parents basically thought if most of us made it to 18 alive and unkidnapped with only a few broken bones and stitches along the way, then they had done a good job.
Am I saying this was better? Heck, no, that was pretty darn extreme, and some kids ended up seriously injured, some with serious drug and alcohol problems, some pregnant or fathers, some in juvie, some actually died in things like car accidents, and so on.
But part of me does wonder if the pendulum has swung a bit too far in the other direction for some kids.
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Part of the problem is that modern parenting often encourages kids to juggle multiple AP classes, extracurriculars, athletics, leadership opportunities, cultural experiences, and creative pursuits to impress future colleges when applying. The result is that they simply don’t have the time or opportunity to learn basic life skills, like registering a car, knowing where to buy a postage stamp for a ballot, or navigating dozens of other mundane, everyday responsibilities.
That was part of my point when I said upthread:
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