<p>Helicopter Parents-Part 3,279 
<a href=“http://www.bu.edu/alumni/bostonia/2007/fall/helicopter/index.html[/url]”>http://www.bu.edu/alumni/bostonia/2007/fall/helicopter/index.html</a>
“Then there was the freshman at a Bay State Road residence this September. When the topic of bathroom cleanliness came up at a house meeting with the building’s RA, reports an upperclassman, she raised her hand and said, ‘Don’t worry, my mom already scrubbed and Lysoled the third-floor bathroom today!’”</p>
<p>Wow, just wow!</p>
<p>This topic comes up on CC often, and as always, I just don’t see it so black and white. Kids are individuals, family relationships vary, kids mature at different rates, and so on. Why is there is only one appropriate way to parent an 18-year-old?</p>
<p>The article cites a few examples that are clearly over the top:
*talking to professors about disappointing grades
*mom already scrubbed and Lysoled the third-floor bathroom today
*student’s mother waiting to join the [independent study] discussion</p>
<p>However, I’m feeling a bit like schools have cried wolf too often, and I don’t hear it anymore. It seems beginning in Kindergarten that teachers start saying, “It is time for your student to become responsible and you need to stay out of it.” It is easier to scold the parent than deal with the issue. So when I hear a school crying, “Helicopter!” I immediately look past it to see what the school doesn’t want to deal with. They know students are powerless in many situations and parents are not. And yes, paying tuition does give me a certain sense of entitlement (in the same way paying taxes did for public school). I also think that helping a freshmen is much less terrible than helping an upperclassman. </p>
<p>I was like the one dad in the story who, when he went to college, had a pay phone at the end of the hall. I went to a small branch campus 90 minutes from home my freshmen year, and went home every other weekend. I got to leave home gradually. In that sense, I think my kids are a lot more independent than I am. I will see all three of them over Thanksgiving - first time since summer. </p>
<p>The article makes a good point about families with more money have more time to be involved. My parents cut off phone calls at 3 minutes, so requests for emergency funds was about the only contact. We had no real emotional connect. I do have that connection with my kids. I think it’s a good thing. Just because something is different from how it used to be, it isn’t automatically bad. </p>
<p>There are other examples in the article that I don’t think are necessarily extreme. Like the dad who “said that driving across the country in a van full of college kids is too dangerous.” No idea if I would make the same call, but parents have always expressed concern over their kid’s safety. My H’s parents, in their 80s, still don’t like us to take risks. (My mother, on the other hand, takes more risks than I do.)</p>
<p>“41 percent of them, the survey reports, gathered information on prospective employers for their children.” A parent can be a valuable tool! It’s not a lot different from availing oneself of the school’s job center or other networking process. When I - or my sisters - graduated from college, my mom said things like, “Where are you applying to work? Have you considered this place?” My mother clipped ads from newspapers. If I send Googled Internet links via email, it’s suddenly helicoptering? I have a kid who is a senior this year; we are preoccupied mentally with whether he will be employed or living back at home. Obviously, I can’t take his auditions for him, but if I see an opening in an orchestra somewhere, believe me, I will send the link.</p>
<p>I have the advantage of having one of my three already out on his own and doing well, far from home. So I know any help or advice I gave him over the years has not impaired him. Guess what, kindergarten teachers? He is one of the most responsible and independant kids on the planet. As far as I know, he’s even remembered lunch money every day since starting his job two years ago. It gives me some reassurance that I am not damaging my other kids by trying to help them now and then.</p>
<p>Great post, binx. I couldn’t have said it better myself. Bravo!</p>
<p>binx, I don’t consider myself to be a helicopter mom and I had the same reaction to this particular article and to the identical examples you gave as well. Not so black and white to me either.</p>