God, Mom, Stop Hovering!
We spent a lot of time last week on mean, destructive parents. But bad parenting has a lighter side as well. Being a bad parent can mean forcing your kid to eat spinach, even though the very scent makes him wretch. It can mean forcing your kid to compete in beauty pageants. Or, it can mean…well, just not leaving your kid the hell alone. This ABC story on “helicopter parents” spotlights what some pundits say is the growing trend of moms and dads fighting for their kids all the way up through college, when the kid should be learning to fight for herself. Take, for example, the mom who bitched because of the substandard plumbing in her daughter’s apartment…on her study-abroad trip to China. Schools like Colgate University are saying “Nyet!” to helicopter parents, telling them to take a chill pill. The University of Vermont even has “parent bouncers” to keep moms and pops from butting in on their student’s academic counseling sessions.
Colgate’s Dean of Student Affairs, Jim Terhune, says that some parents have been pissed by the hands-off approach, and frequently quote the college’s hefty yearly price tag back at him. Terhune’s response? “[W]hat you’re paying for is an education, not a room at the Sheraton, and sometimes that education is uncomfortable.”
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