A girl I knew growing up, extremely nice and talented, had the terrible combination of helicopter parents and a stage mother. This woman had wormed her way into every facet of her daughter's life and it was pretty creepy to witness. There were a few instances of the girl acting out as high school came along and I had the feeling that you could draw a straight line from the mother's pressure right to the daughter's behavior.

After a few years of college out of state I heard that the girl had cut off contact with the mother, and a few months ago I actually read in the paper that the girl got a restraining order, about 10 years too late. There's nothing good about helicopter parents. It wouldn't bother me how pathetic they are if they weren't so goddamn damaging to their kids.

somedude210: Tremolo: A girl I knew growing up, extremely nice and talented, had the terrible combination of helicopter parents and a stage mother. This woman had wormed her way into every facet of her daughter's life and it was pretty creepy to witness. There were a few instances of the girl acting out as high school came along and I had the feeling that you could draw a straight line from the mother's pressure right to the daughter's behavior.

After a few years of college out of state I heard that the girl had cut off contact with the mother, and a few months ago I actually read in the paper that the girl got a restraining order, about 10 years too late. There's nothing good about helicopter parents. It wouldn't bother me how pathetic they are if they weren't so goddamn damaging to their kids.

Just curious but is there a link between helicopter parents, special snowflake syndrome and why my generation (24) is a bunch of do-nothing crybabies?

No, I relate the helicopter parenting to more acting out than anything else. My parents were pretty lenient with me and I'm solidly the 'do nothing' variety.

Do they mean a more serious depression than "Mooooooom! You're embarrassing me!"

miss diminutive: In university I actually received a telephone call from one of my roommate's mothers who yelled at me for a) trying to institute an unfair "chore wheel" which would require her daughter to take out the garbage once a month and b) not taking her daughter along on during our last grocery trip.

Not surprisingly, my roommate was a psycho hose-beast.

Go on...

Rev. Skarekroe: Tremolo: After a few years of college out of state I heard that the girl had cut off contact with the mother, and a few months ago I actually read in the paper that the girl got a restraining order, about 10 years too late.

Was it this chick?
She was all over the news for a day or two.

That's her. I kept expecting to see e story on Fark but never did. I was in the theatre dept when she was in high school so I saw a decent amount of their crazy behavior. It sucks that she had to do that but I have no doubt that it was her only option to have a normal life.

I dislike blaming the kids for this. It's not their fault they have cretinous farking parents.

I will provide the legally required amount of care for my child, until their 18th birthday. Then, it's the catapult.

So... don't talk to your parents about things.  It's not complicated.

My mother started doing that kind of crap to me in middle school, showing up to mess with my teachers every time I was upset about something and so on.  Nothing dire, just the usual well-intentioned meddling.  Result: did not talk to my mother about school for roughly 10 years, until she was far enough away and I was old enough she couldn't reasonably mess with my shiat.  Didn't even differentiate between detention and club activities when telling her I'd be home late from school.  When asked about school directly, responded by talking about the content of the lesson plan (my parents are pretty well-educated so it was a good distraction).  Didn't have to be rude (I mean, I was, obviously, once I got to be a teenager, but still), just learned what set her off and didn't give it to her.  Talked to my father when I was upset instead, who helpfully gave less than zero farks and knew I was just venting (probably because I learned it from mom, and she did it to him about... well, me).

Albeit, having been on the teacher end of it, I've got the usual horror stories about parents being a little too interested in seeing their kid do well, and the ones that were well-meaning but didn't entirely understand school since they didn't finish it themselves, and so on.  I have to say that the ones I hated the most were the ones that didn't seem to care at all, honestly.  Because it's farking surreal to care about someone's child more than they do.  That didn't mean the other types weren't annoying as hell, though.

//I only teach undergrads now, because students are great but parents drive me  farking nuts.

grinding_journalist: I will provide the legally required amount of care for my child, until their 18th birthday. Then, it's the catapult.

we prefer the term trebuchet .

CapeFearCadaver: miss diminutive: In university I actually received a telephone call from one of my roommate's mothers who yelled at me for a) trying to institute an unfair "chore wheel" which would require her daughter to take out the garbage once a month and b) not taking her daughter along on during our last grocery trip.

Not surprisingly, my roommate was a psycho hose-beast.

I was friends with a girl in high school whose mother was like that. The woman was completely insane and followed her daughter everywhere. This was also before cell phones so she would drive by her friends houses if she was out for say a sleep over, or we'd see her drive slowly the movie theater if we were at the movies. Put the girl on oodles of medications even though the girl did not need to be on any sort of medications.

The girl decided she had had enough of the over-baring mother so she ran away with her boyfriend (these were all really good kids, made good grades, kinda nerdy...) Woman calls up my parents insisting that her daughter ran away because I was such a bad influence on her kid. Asks my mom to speak to me and when my mom said I wasn't home completely went off the rails screaming and cussing at my mother, ect ect ect. She ends up coming to my parents house banging on the door, still screaming, blaming me (who knows why) for her daughter running away. Long story shorter, cops were called, woman's husband was called and she ended up in the mental hospital for about a year.

Daughter was at the boyfriends house with his parents, they were protecting the girl from the mom. When mom went away she moved back in with her dad and he got a divorce and a restraining order.

I hope she's doing well; few stories have happy endings.

/Nice to see she had people in her life willing to step in

Tremolo: Rev. Skarekroe: Tremolo: After a few years of college out of state I heard that the girl had cut off contact with the mother, and a few months ago I actually read in the paper that the girl got a restraining order, about 10 years too late.

Was it this chick?
She was all over the news for a day or two.

That's her. I kept expecting to see e story on Fark but never did. I was in the theatre dept when she was in high school so I saw a decent amount of their crazy behavior. It sucks that she had to do that but I have no doubt that it was her only option to have a normal life.

I never had to get the restraining order, but I came close.  My mother has severe borderline personality disorder.  I had to completely cut her out of my life to avoid turning into Principal Skinner.

What someone depressed by a helicopter may look like:

miss diminutive: In university I actually received a telephone call from one of my roommate's mothers who yelled at me for a) trying to institute an unfair "chore wheel" which would require her daughter to take out the garbage once a month and b) not taking her daughter along on during our last grocery trip.

Not surprisingly, my roommate was a psycho hose-beast.

Please tell me you told the mom to fark off and gave the roommate extra garbage duty.

Tremolo: That's her. I kept expecting to see e story on Fark but never did.

You know your mom and dad are classic helicopter parents if you need a court injunction to keep them from stalking you on campus

FTA: They asked the students how much they agreed with statements like "If I am having an issue with my roommate, my mother would try to intervene" and "If I were to receive a low grade that I felt was unfair, my mother would call the professor."

If I were to have received a low grade that I felt was unfair, my mom would have shrugged her shoulders and my dad would have told me to cut my hair and get a job and quit wasting his hard-earned money on tuition.

grinding_journalist: I will provide the legally required amount of care for my child, until their 18th birthday. Then, it's the catapult.

This works. Well, it worked in our case. All four of us turned out to be independent, responsible, and successful adults.

I was the last one, finishing up my senior thesis during break and my Mom walked into my room and said, "You have until July 15th. Find another place to live before then." I run into guys who are still being coddled by their parents. There is just so much in life they don't get. It is hard to describe.

At what point does it stop, or do the helicopter parents continue when the child is employed too?
The parents aren't really helping their child, life will kick you in the nuts every now and again. The child needs to realize this, take the hit and move on. The kid learns nothing of life if mom and dad are there to absorb the hits for them.

miss diminutive: In university I actually received a telephone call from one of my roommate's mothers who yelled at me for a) trying to institute an unfair "chore wheel" which would require her daughter to take out the garbage once a month and b) not taking her daughter along on during our last grocery trip.

Not surprisingly, my roommate was a psycho hose-beast.

Why wait until college?  I sent out invitations for my son's 8th birthday party a few months ago.  One of the moms emailed me back and suggested I have the party somewhere besides the laser tag sports arena my son chose.  She didn't want her son playing "war games" and "learning to kill other boys with guns".  I tried to be cool and said it was already in stone, so too bad.  She started sending me emails with alternative places I could hold the party.  The last straw came when she hit "reply to all" with my original invite and asked the other parents if they would be happy with her choice (a place called Bounce-U) over my choice.  Her email went on to say "Dave (that's me) is a member of the PTO and should be setting a better example for our young children to follow...".  I returned the favor and hit reply to all with this "Fark you, Michelle.  The party is at Sports Fusion.  Everyone but your little snowflake is invited."  Aside from Michelle, I had 100% attendance.  They're still buzzing over that one.

You ALL RIGHT!

I learned by watching you.

Too Pretty For Prison: miss diminutive: In university I actually received a telephone call from one of my roommate's mothers who yelled at me for a) trying to institute an unfair "chore wheel" which would require her daughter to take out the garbage once a month and b) not taking her daughter along on during our last grocery trip.

Not surprisingly, my roommate was a psycho hose-beast.

Why wait until college?  I sent out invitations for my son's 8th birthday party a few months ago.  One of the moms emailed me back and suggested I have the party somewhere besides the laser tag sports arena my son chose.  She didn't want her son playing "war games" and "learning to kill other boys with guns".  I tried to be cool and said it was already in stone, so too bad.  She started sending me emails with alternative places I could hold the party.  The last straw came when she hit "reply to all" with my original invite and asked the other parents if they would be happy with her choice (a place called Bounce-U) over my choice.  Her email went on to say "Dave (that's me) is a member of the PTO and should be setting a better example for our young children to follow...".  I returned the favor and hit reply to all with this "Fark you, Michelle.  The party is at Sports Fusion.  Everyone but your little snowflake is invited."  Aside from Michelle, I had 100% attendance.  They're still buzzing over that one.

Really?  REALLY?  OMFSM the emailing the other attendees is what made my brain explode.  If any of my kids friend's parents did that I'd lose my freakin mind.  That's insane

cig-mkr: At what point does it stop, or do the helicopter parents continue when the child is employed too?

It's not hard to find stories of employers talking about getting calls from parents of job candidates or rejected candidates. Needless to say, if it's a pre-decision, it usually doesn't impress the employer.

damageddude: This year our son's school (he is in middle school) switched to a system where grades are posted throughout the semester online on a parents portal. These include grades for quizzes, tests, reports etc. which is actually pretty nice as we don't have to go through the pulling teeth to get grades from him etc. The first time I logged on, I set it up so we would get weekly emails so we wouldn't have to log in. After about 8 weeks we received a note from our son's homeroom teacher noting that we hadn't logged onto the parents portal in awhile and it was imperative to log on to track grades. I went back on, figuring there was something I missed when I set up the emails. Nope, just Big Brother upset we weren't being proper helicopter parents.

At the risk of defending a teacher "they" are taking the most expedient means of covering their asses - on any given year they have had to deal with at least one parent screaming at them in a meeting because little Johnny is failing and "THIS IS THE FIRST I'VE HEARD OF THIS!!!!! - YOU SUCK AT YOUR JOB AND I WANT HIM PASSING RIGHT NOW!!!!"

Despite weekly messages sent home (Johnny "lost" them), unreturned phone calls and the high probability of various missed "intervention meetings".

The computerized grade notifications are a dream fulfilled for teachers - you have an account,  you have been notified of your responsibilities - if you can't even be bothered to spend 20 seconds a week to log on and check the grades you can kindly STFU when you find out your snowflake is flunking for the first time during the third quarter.

Too Pretty For Prison: miss diminutive: In university I actually received a telephone call from one of my roommate's mothers who yelled at me for a) trying to institute an unfair "chore wheel" which would require her daughter to take out the garbage once a month and b) not taking her daughter along on during our last grocery trip.

Not surprisingly, my roommate was a psycho hose-beast.

Why wait until college?  I sent out invitations for my son's 8th birthday party a few months ago.  One of the moms emailed me back and suggested I have the party somewhere besides the laser tag sports arena my son chose.  She didn't want her son playing "war games" and "learning to kill other boys with guns".  I tried to be cool and said it was already in stone, so too bad.  She started sending me emails with alternative places I could hold the party.  The last straw came when she hit "reply to all" with my original invite and asked the other parents if they would be happy with her choice (a place called Bounce-U) over my choice.  Her email went on to say "Dave (that's me) is a member of the PTO and should be setting a better example for our young children to follow...".  I returned the favor and hit reply to all with this "Fark you, Michelle.  The party is at Sports Fusion.  Everyone but your little snowflake is invited."  Aside from Michelle, I had 100% attendance.  They're still buzzing over that one.

"Hear hear!" Nice.

Fizpez: damageddude: This year our son's school (he is in middle school) switched to a system where grades are posted throughout the semester online on a parents portal. These include grades for quizzes, tests, reports etc. which is actually pretty nice as we don't have to go through the pulling teeth to get grades from him etc. The first time I logged on, I set it up so we would get weekly emails so we wouldn't have to log in. After about 8 weeks we received a note from our son's homeroom teacher noting that we hadn't logged onto the parents portal in awhile and it was imperative to log on to track grades. I went back on, figuring there was something I missed when I set up the emails. Nope, just Big Brother upset we weren't being proper helicopter parents.

At the risk of defending a teacher "they" are taking the most expedient means of covering their asses - on any given year they have had to deal with at least one parent screaming at them in a meeting because little Johnny is failing and "THIS IS THE FIRST I'VE HEARD OF THIS!!!!! - YOU SUCK AT YOUR JOB AND I WANT HIM PASSING RIGHT NOW!!!!"

Despite weekly messages sent home (Johnny "lost" them), unreturned phone calls and the high probability of various missed "intervention meetings".

The computerized grade notifications are a dream fulfilled for teachers - you have an account,  you have been notified of your responsibilities - if you can't even be bothered to spend 20 seconds a week to log on and check the grades you can kindly STFU when you find out your snowflake is flunking for the first time during the third quarter.

/PS that wasnt directed at you - just explaining why they want to make sure they can at least say "Well, we tried..."

olapbill: we prefer the term trebuchet .

While it's an easy mistake to make, trebuchets and catapults are different things. If you're using it as a verb, trebuchets catapult objects, but as a noun, they're different.

." Why are you sad, Johnny? WHO DID THIS TO YOU? WHERE'S YOUR TEACHER, THAT BIATCH


LOL.

/+1

Obvious tags mom says its to cold to come out to play.

Tremolo: A girl I knew growing up, extremely nice and talented, had the terrible combination of helicopter parents and a stage mother. This woman had wormed her way into every facet of her daughter's life and it was pretty creepy to witness. There were a few instances of the girl acting out as high school came along and I had the feeling that you could draw a straight line from the mother's pressure right to the daughter's behavior.

After a few years of college out of state I heard that the girl had cut off contact with the mother, and a few months ago I actually read in the paper that the girl got a restraining order, about 10 years too late. There's nothing good about helicopter parents. It wouldn't bother me how pathetic they are if they weren't so goddamn damaging to their kids.

I know how this ended. Once she got away the stage mom focused on your friends sister. Who admittedly became a stripper. But the best and most famous stripper ever.

JohnAnnArbor: somedude210: Just curious but is there a link between helicopter parents, special snowflake syndrome and why my generation (24) is a bunch of do-nothing crybabies?

Probably.  I'm early 40s.  When I was a college freshman, the cafeteria jobs were gone by the first day of classes.  A few years later, the same jobs would go unfilled all year.  I asked an underclassman who constantly complained about lacking cash about taking one of those; she was HORRIFIED at the idea of lowering herself to work food service.

I scored some of my best weed in food service. There are perks aside from the cash.

You would be surprised at how many helicopter 'rents try to get their kid's credit reports or dispute the findings on them.

The school district that I work at uses an online portal so that parents can track their child's progress. One day, a fellow teacher and I were going over the Parent Portal stats and saw that one of our students' parents had logged in 300 times. IN ONE WEEK. Note that this stat tracks successful log-ins, not just attempts at logging in.

For fun, we did the math. Assuming the student's parents had divorced and both remarried, then 4 possible people could be logging in and viewing the student's grades. Those 4 people would each have to log-in 10.7 times a day, each day, to arrive at the '300 times' figure.  In this case, though, the parents were split and only one had remarried, so that's 3 people looking at the portal 14.29 times a day 7 days a week. That student exhibits a lot of testing anxiety, probably because they're afraid of what Mommy and Daddy will say when they see the grade.

And then, of course, we had a student whose parents had never logged in, not even to set up preferences (such as automatically emailing the parents when the gradebook is updated). That student acts out in class (plea for attention) and hardly ever completes homework. That student's test grades are abysmal. The parents don't show up to parent-teacher conferences.

cig-mkr: At what point does it stop, or do the helicopter parents continue when the child is employed too?
The parents aren't really helping their child, life will kick you in the nuts every now and again. The child needs to realize this, take the hit and move on. The kid learns nothing of life if mom and dad are there to absorb the hits for them.

We were looking for a science writer for my team this past summer and my boss took glee in showing me the most "shocking" email he had ever received from a job candidate.

A woman wrote a cover letter that basically sung the praises of her son and why he would be perfect for this job and why his minor in biology gave him a perfect understanding of our field (note: we are a pharmaceutical association). My boss then wrote a response to her asking why didn't she just apply for the job herself since she seemed more interested in it than her son. I don't think she was pleased.

When I then told him I've been hearing about these cases since I left high school and I didn't find it "shocking" at all he looked a little disappointed. I think this was the first time he looked for a new writer/designer without using a temp agency.

/we managed to fill the position with a functioning adult, thank FSM

evaned: cig-mkr: At what point does it stop, or do the helicopter parents continue when the child is employed too?

It's not hard to find stories of employers talking about getting calls from parents of job candidates or rejected candidates. Needless to say, if it's a pre-decision, it usually doesn't impress the employer.

Evidently I've been retired too long, that applicants form would hit the file 13 circular file right quick.
Like I really want to hire someone that never cut the apron string.

You can call me whatever you want as a parent. I don't give a shiat. Out of the billions of people on this planet there is ONE who came from me. I'll do whatever I can to protect him and give him guidence.

I keep waiting for backlash on this.  Like serious societal backlash. I was already the only person who knew how to cook in college and I was on a short list of people who worked.
I'm pretty successful judging by my peers.  I expected "generic office job" to be normal after a few years, but food service and retail still reign supreme.  And that's after the industry my degree was in collapsed and I started over (yay finance).

KatjaMouse: cig-mkr: At what point does it stop, or do the helicopter parents continue when the child is employed too?
The parents aren't really helping their child, life will kick you in the nuts every now and again. The child needs to realize this, take the hit and move on. The kid learns nothing of life if mom and dad are there to absorb the hits for them.

We were looking for a science writer for my team this past summer and my boss took glee in showing me the most "shocking" email he had ever received from a job candidate.

A woman wrote a cover letter that basically sung the praises of her son and why he would be perfect for this job and why his minor in biology gave him a perfect understanding of our field (note: we are a pharmaceutical association). My boss then wrote a response to her asking why didn't she just apply for the job herself since she seemed more interested in it than her son. I don't think she was pleased.

When I then told him I've been hearing about these cases since I left high school and I didn't find it "shocking" at all he looked a little disappointed. I think this was the first time he looked for a new writer/designer without using a temp agency.

/we managed to fill the position with a functioning adult, thank FSM

Great response, kudos to him!