I would push back on that. I’m in my 50s and I was still juggling multiple AP classes, ECs, band, leadership, part time job, volunteering, etc when I was in high school in the stone ages… and still learned all the “mundane” tasks.
And we had the same expectations of our daughter when she was in HS.
Exactly! When both my kids moved into their dorms, they each got folders full of pamphlets with information. Their dorm and their school also had Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram pages that are full of info. Can’t connect to WIFI? Here are some instructions for troubleshooting. Still can’t connect? Here is a number you can call and someone can assist you. Laptop acting funny? They have a tech fix-it desk in the library and student union. Did the light in your dorm go out? Call the maintenance number or put in a work order at the dorm front desk. In both my kids dorms, the RAs all had bulletin boards outside their doors with information students might need. In fact, there were bulletin boards all over campus with relevant info. And there are LOTS of people on campus that students (and parents too) can ask if they have a question.
I see this kind of thing even when “kids” have graduated college and are working and living on their own. We reached out to my niece (she lives 10 min. away from us) to see if she could come feed our cats, get our mail, and water our plants while we were on vacation. We didn’t hear from her, instead we hear from her dad who says she is available to help and what time of day do we want her to come over? My niece was 26 at the time. She could’ve told us! We are asking her, not her dad.
I read the whole article and rolled my eyes big time. To me, what you describe here is different and something I have extended to friends’ kids and hope friend or family extends to mine if she ends up attending school near them. YMMV, but having someone nearby who yes can do those special things, or occasionally have them over for a meal, can be building a larger community.
The service academies have long connected cadets and midshipmen with “sponsors”, volunteer families nearby. These families certainly aren’t doing laundry or running errands, but if the mid gets a Sunday afternoon free it can be liberating to lay on a comfy couch and watch football while someone feeds you and sends you back on post with a box of fresh brownies.
I think the issue is that these stand-ins are getting paid and making a business out of it, not just friends/neighbors doing a kindness now and then or stepping in in an emergency out of common decency.
Saw this in response to the article on social media. This is a lady at Alabama and several people in the comments had used her. Good for her I guess for capitalizing on a niche need.
Kills me that having someone else to wash, dry and fold your clothes is “essential” vs. doing it yourself.
And a monthly “room reset”…
Wonder if that works like my son’s dorm room did… a cleaning person would come in and vacuum the floor and do a bathroom once over but not before opening the door and announcing that if they didn’t get their cr*p off the floor and straighten up in the next 10 minutes it wasn’t happening…now that’s “mom” service. (he said they learned to keep it pretty good after that!).
Clearly I have been underpaid.
Oh wait, I never did any of these tasks for my kids.
Not the flip side though. Hard to have a parent helicopter 1000’s of miles, time zones and a culture or two away. Same would happen at the university if parents left them on their own to fend for themselves.
If you’re wealthy, why use laundry machines when the local dry cleaner or laundromat will wash and fold with pick up and delivery for a small fortune.
And with Uber Eats or like services, why trudge through the cold for a meal ?
Parents may think they are helping kids - time for studying etc but they are failing in life skills. Not to this extent but to some extent we didn’t do a great job here with my daughter and we see it now with my wife constantly following up on dentist, dr and other appts, especially as we are past our deductible and into co pay territory. She doesn’t care about spending our money as she would likely her own.
My kid said he doesn’t want to do laundry because there is no machine in the apartment. He has go to elsewhere in the building, and the building charges money anyway. He started using the wash and fold service. At that point it is his choice what he spends money on. He is at work for long hours and some work on weekends. I did not complain. It is not the worst thing.
But he did it in college - I mean during college. Once you earn money, how you spend it is up to you.
One day long ago, when I was out of town for work, my husband taught our kids (then around elementary school/young middle school age) to fold their own laundry, and it was the best thing ever.
Recently, a parent in the family facebook group for one of my kids’ colleges (yes, I follow these groups, partly for entertainment, and partly because you can get some legitimately useful information sometimes) posted to ask if there was a laundry service that their kid could use. The post was met with what I like to think was stunned silence, along with very few comments to the effect of: Umm, there’s laundry in the basement. And it’s free.
When my oldest was a freshman, there was a guy on her floor whose mom came up every other week to do his laundry. While he was in class, she would lug everything down to the basement laundry and hang out there with a book until it was done. That was before colleges started offering add-on laundry services. I am always shocked to hear how many college-bound kids have never done a load of laundry themselves and are genuinely gobsmacked by the process.
When I was in high school I was always amazed when I was at my best friend’s house and we were hanging out in her room and her mom would come in and put my friend’s folded clothes into her drawers. Especially since at my house, I was the one doing the family laundry for myself and my parents. Needless to say, I was one of the kids who knew how to use the college washing machines when I got there.
Haha - I have a friend who has a house with the primary bedroom and laundry room on the main floor. Her kid’s bedrooms were upstairs. She always kept a pile of clean, folded laundry aside to have an excuse to be upstairs when they had friends over. It gave her an opportunity to snoop on what they were up to without embarrassing her kids.
Good point! I would say that being a helicopter parent is a choice. Doesn’t matter if your kid lives at home, at college 10 miles away or 1,000 miles away, you don’t have to helicopter parent them
I certainly wasn’t a helicopter parent by any stretch. Or I tried anyway. It’s become harder and harder not to be in our present society which doesn’t allow for anything less than perfection on social media. And more affluent parents can make things surface perfect for their kids. Can’t be there? Hire it done! Even an in-person check-up! After all, doesn’t every kid want somebody looking over their shoulder?
I think my parents (at least mom) could’ve been a helicopter but that was the time of no cell phones and no media–it was the once a week phone call era. No choice but to give up the reins. I recall getting to my dorm room and feeling such elation! Nobody to tell me how to decorate, or what to eat, or just anything!
I imagine helicoptered kids doing study abroad hit that same level. Can’t break away at college because of constant ties to home through media. Or parent just “doing things” for you that are nice (so can’t complain) but not your choices. Finally peace at last to be on your own.
