Story time: Homework helicoptering (long)

I'm not sure why, but today I started thinking about grade school and how fucking stressful it was for me to have homework. I think I mentioned this before, but my mother was doing her whole helicopter breeder thing back then and she did my homework for me until I was about 14. As in she'd come home from work, start bitching around 6 for me to come do my work, and sit with me for 1-5 hours doing my assignments for me.

But I wasn't allowed to actually go do anything else - I had to sit there and wait for her to read the assignment, come up with an answer and write it down. Made no sense to me when I was six or seven - if Mom's doing my work for me, why can't I go play? All I'm doing is sitting here and watching her and listening to her bitch when she can't understand something. And anyone who ever saw her sitting there with me would ask why she was doing my work for me, and she'd always say, "I'm not doing her work for her. I'm helping her with her work." Apparently her idea of "helping" was her doing it all for me and me just copying her answers in my own writing.

It wouldn't have been so bad, but as said, some nights it took several hours because what I had to do was much different from what she did in school. In third grade for science, there'd be questions that would involve a little thinking and she would sit there for 2-3 hours trying to answer one question. Usually screaming about it. Not to mention my mother isn't exactly a law school grad - I often got a lot of shit wrong on assignments because my mother had no idea what she was talking about. And when her answers were wrong, it was always the teacher's fault and she'd have a fit all night about what a dumb fucking bitch the teacher was (I didn't mind this because it was nice for something to not be my fault for a change).

She did my book reports for me too. She'd pick the book for me because obviously I was too stupid to pick a proper one. We'd both read it, she'd write the report and I would re-write it in my own writing. This was before I had a computer, so I had to hand-write my reports. And she would throw a fit over trivial shit, usually if she didn't like the way my handwriting looked (like if I mixed printing and cursive) or if I made a mistake and had to cross something out. Even though several teachers told me this was okay and would not result in loss of points, if I had to cross out a word, Mom would take the paper, rip it up and make me write it all over again. I couldn't even use White-Out unless it was going on midnight and I made another mistake.

Studying was real fun too. Mom would read the material and come up with pages of quiz questions to ask me and she would ask me these questions all night long until I got every single one right. If I got the same question wrong regularly, she'd scream at me. If she could have somehow taken my exams for me, I guarantee you she would have in a second.

Usually my biggest fear, though, was having to take stuff home for her to sign that was less than stellar. The most dreaded of the three was a homework slip, which a student got when they forgot an assignment. The penalty was 10 points off grade of this one little assignment. You'd think I got expelled for selling drugs the way my mother would absolutely fucking lose it if I brought home one of these yellow slips for her to sign. Even if it was some piddly little assignment that I could afford to fail and still do good, didn't matter to her. I'd hear about how dumb I am and how not even Wal-Mart would hire me when I got older. Yes, because my entire future will be destroyed over me getting an 80 on an English workbook assignment rather than a 90. Needless to say, I got really good at forging her signature on these slips.

The other thing she had to sign was a folder that went home weekly with all my tests and quizzes. I heard about it if I got anything below an 85, so before I went home, I'd take out anything that I scored 84% or lower on, sign it myself, and put it in the folder the next day. I think my teachers knew I was forging her signature and Mom asked me if I was, but I denied it. Like I'd admit to my ass-saving techniques and risk having the bitch get MORE controlling.

Gods forbid I had an assignment that I wrote down and forgot the book for it, like I had a history quiz and forgot my textbook. Ohhhh the screaming and the crying. I would have to go borrow a classmate's book, and because my mother did not drive, she'd call her sister to drive to my grandma's house (where Mom and I lived) and then to the classmate's house. The best part was always how Mom would scream bloody murder at me, then when she was on the phone with Katie or Susie or whoever, she'd sound sweet as pie and ever so kindly ask to borrow their book. She'd hang up and go back to screaming. It was like she was a verbal chameleon. But that's how most narcissists are. They've got a home face that only their spouses/kids see, and a public face that is the exact opposite.

I decided on my own to start doing my own homework when I got to high school because I was sick of the screaming and having to be stressed and afraid every single night. I'd just lie and say I had no homework (if you couldn't already tell, I learned pretty early on that lying to save my ass was far better than being honest with the bitch).

Holy fuck sticks, what a change! Something that would take my mother 2 hours to do, I got done in 45 minutes. I felt more accomplished. I could relax and do homework at my own pace. My handwriting wasn't called into question. And the best part? My grades improved considerably. My mother's dumbshit answers were hit and miss, but I did so much better when I was allowed to use my own mind.

I never understood it - my mother would say how smart and talented I was (about half the time; the other half, I heard about how dumb I was), but then she'd do my homework for me because she was so worried I'd be too fucking dumb to make it through grade school. Had I not broken the cycle, I wonder how she expected me to go to college and excel.

It messed me up pretty good, though. To this day, I'm still afraid of my mother and I have a nervous breakdown over less than stellar grades. I still have nightmares where I forget an assignment and stress out the entire next day trying to remember what I forgot. Hooray helicopter parenting. y

You need to move out. Your mom is batshit crazy. Even if you can't afford your own place, I'm sure there's a way to move in with a relative, even if it means transferring schools. You really, really need out.

Cambion, I'm so sorry to read that. It sounds so unrelentingly HARROWING.

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thundergilr85 nli
You need to move out. Your mom is batshit crazy. Even if you can't afford your own place, I'm sure there's a way to move in with a relative, even if it means transferring schools. You really, really need out.

I agree with every word of this. The stories you tell about living with your mother make my skin crawl. I just can't imagine...

Le sigh, I know I do. It's just trying to find someone who could put me and the cats up who I could trust to not let them outside (my female is the only one who would make the effort to bolt out the door). There's really only my one aunt, but I'd have to basically keep the cats in cages all the time because she doesn't want any animals on the furniture. And she would probably let them out by accident. I love her, but she wouldn't realize just how much I love my cats and how heartbroken I'd be if one ran away.

I just worry if I went from here to a relative's house, I'd just restart the cycle of being unemployed and dependent. Rent around here is so fucking high (like $800+ for a one-bedroom), and that's pretty pricey for a hick town, but everyone wants to rent to the oil drilling people, so they know they can charge an arm and a leg and get it because oil drilling = well-paid workers. That, and absolutely no one rents to pet owners. No one. Every single ad I see for any size apartment or house for rent is listed as "petless." If the cats don't go, I don't go. I refuse to leave my cats with my mother or re-home them.

If I can move out before I graduate, I'm dropping out. I never wanted to fucking go to grad school to begin with and I do not want to do a thesis, so if I'm out before next July, I'm quitting school. It's just extra stress in my life.

What I especially hated was when my undergrad college mailed my grades to me. My mom would open my school mail in case it was important stuff and she'd get mad if I got any B's, and I heard about it when I got a C in animation. Well 'scuse me for not being fucking good at everything. It's one of the reasons I switched majors. Thankfully they eventually made it so grades were only available online.

Honestly, while all this shit may sound bad to everyone else, it's normal for me and I dare say I can look back on all this BS (in the distant and recent past) and laugh. It's kind of like how people who work in the ER or in special education or other stressful jobs have to try and use humor to cope with the horrible things they see and experience. I do the same thing, only I don't get paid.

Your mother sounds mentally ill, Cambion. There is nothing even remotely rational about her behavior.

You need to get the hell out of there yesterday. I do hear you about your kitties though, there is no way in hell I would leave my babies with someone like that. Do have someone besides us who you can confide in? Perhaps find allies to connect with?

Perhaps it might be possible to *temporarily* foster your cats at a friend's or relative's homes until you can establish yourself, raise some savings, and find a place that does allow animals?

When I divorced, I lived with a coworker who had a house and he let me have my cat. Rather than living alone, can you find a roommate situation instead? It's cheaper and if you can get a different floor to yourself you can keep your kitties from taking off. Check Craigslist for rooms / shared. Around here you can get a room between $350 and $500 and TONS of people are fine with cats. Maybe it's time to leave town?

How awful that you have to go through that shit all the time, Cambion.
I've always thought the whole helicopter parent crap was really an attempt for parents to pretend they care by fulfilling an inner void. Like everything else in the breeder world its nothing more than a selfish motive.

Well I'm at least thankful the homework bullshit has stopped. Besides, if my mother couldn't handle grade school work, I could probably charge admission to watch her try to do college work.

Unfortunately, I don't really have many friends who could put me up, and those who could couldn't put me and the cats up for various reasons. So...I'm kinda stuck. I would love to move back to Pittsburgh since some of the burbs around the city seem to have more reasonable rent and are pet-friendly. Problem is getting money for deposits (security and pet) and a few months' rent to carry my ass while I look for work in wherever I move to. That's several thousand right there, not to mention I'd need a car to get from here to there. I'd prefer to room with someone I know, but I'm not sure those I trust most are able to do the independent living thing yet.

I don't have much faith in my ability to find work either because I haven't been employed since last March, and even then, I got fired after 2 months. I don't even list that job on applications because I don't want to have to say, "I got fired because I was a lousy salesperson and I felt the company was a scam." Besides that, all I've got as work experience is freelance and answering texts (a service like ChaCha), and even then, when employers hear I have no "real" work experience and I need to take time off for school, suddenly they aren't interested. This town has no colleges and isn't incredibly close to many schools, so most employers are not very sympathetic to students and their schedules. Not that there's any jobs in this town anyway, and since I borrow my mother's car and she makes where I drive it her business, I can't apply for jobs that are out of town.

I almost wish I was really sick or badly injured so I could get disability and just save that up for a while. Does disability cover mental illness? I ask because I bet a shrink could find a cornucopia of things wrong with my head.

Just sucks because many people may turn to their parents for advice and maybe even help in terms of getting out on their own, like how to stand on your own two feet, budgeting, finding a cheap place to live, and so on. Most parents want their fucking kids out of the house, but mine would be fighting/sabotaging me every step of the way, feeding it into my head that I can't live on my own, where will I get money, and if she knew my address, constantly coming by or trying to get in to look for tampons and sniff my laundry.

I really need to win the lottery. Were it not for those I care about who keep me going each day, I'd have offed myself a long time ago.

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Don't know if I mentioned this before or not, but speaking of my mother having issues with my handwriting, she said something so stupid last month. I had signed something, like a check for her because she is always borrowing money from me. She bitched at me that I "can't" write my signature the way I do. There's nothing wrong with it - I sign with my first name and last initial and I've been signing it that way since high school. She actually told me I need to change my signature, failing to realize that that signature is on every document I've signed since I was 16. Checks, loan papers, contracts, my debit card, bank papers, tax papers. And I'm supposed to up and change it because she doesn't like that I don't sign my full name like she does.

Cute demand, but unrealistic. I laughed about it a lot afterward because it was so ridiculous.

There was a time when mine yelled at me for doing my homework. That's right, I wasn't yelled at for not doing it, I was yelled at for doing it! Basically, they decided they wanted to send me to another school, the same one my sister went to, but I didn't want to go, so they kept tormenting me daily about how I had to get out of that school. While I'd try to do homework, they'd yell at me about it saying I wouldn't have to do that homework at the other school but I wouldn't quit. At one point, I couldn't stand it anymore and I gave in and was transferred.

The new school gave a lot of homework too and I didn't like the fact I'd been lied to. I also didn't understand why it was bad for one school to give homework and good for another. That caused a lot of resentment in me because I hated the new school but felt I was stuck. That school was academically behind the previous one and they emphasized sports over education. Fortunately, we were weren't there for long, but I would have been better off if I'd stayed put.

JD

I had my own homework fight with my parents, most often my moo. If I didn't do homework and got a failing grade I got yelled at. If I asked for help with homework I got hit in the face with a water bottle. I was wrong no matter what I did. I finally gave up and tried to coast through as best I could. When I tried to sign up for classes at my local community college moo got in my way to the point of cancelling financial aid appointments and tearing up mail that came from the college. The real kick in the ass for me on the college issue is the fact moo is a disabled veteran. Children of soldiers that were injured or killed in service go to college for free. Moo knew this and never bothered to tell me. Moo kept me from getting a driver's license for as long as she felt I shouldn't have one. Moo will deny this with her dying breath but the only things she felt I should do in life was marry a nice man keep a I haven't spoken to the sorry cunt in four years but if I did she would be generally confused why I still want to beat her to death.

Cambion I might be putting my foot in my mouth here but the Baker Act is clearly defined as harm to self or others and your mother's hovering is clearly toxic to you. That might be something for you to look into.

Sorry to hear other folks have had to deal with crazy 'rents in regard to school and homework too. Ugh, college is a whole other story - my mother somehow got it in her head that ANY college degree would result in a six-figure job. I knew that wasn't true, but I didn't realize when I enrolled that grads are a dime a dozen and I did not have a better chance of getting a job because I got a degree. Someone told my mother I could make a good living doing art, so she made me go to school, and I chose a school without researching it. Though I will laugh when my lenders go after Mom's money - would serve her right. I hope they garnish her paychecks - she wanted me to go to college so fuckin' bad, she can pay for it.

I've been hearing, "Do good in school so you can get a good gravy job!" for years. I don't think those exist. And since I didn't have the $100,000 Career she was expecting after graduation, she decided to force me into grad school, telling me it was "for my own good." Yes, getting a degree that will make me even more unable to get hired and put me $50K further in debt is "for my own good." I had a nervous breakdown when I had to start classes - I was chugging wine at 9 in the morning, having panic attacks that were so bad I couldn't walk, breathe or see straight, sobbing hysterically...she just told me to stop it like I was a puppy whimpering at the door to go outside.

I tried telling her "no" several times, but she didn't care what I wanted. Just what she felt was best for me. And since she knows she can just break me down and force me to do whatever she wants, that's exactly what she does. She doesn't want to admit she is wrong, so she'll just make my life worse instead. I'm still stuck in grad school, and while it can be fun, it's much too expensive and it interferes with my ability to find work. Nobody wants to hire someone who has to say up-front, "I need to take off 3 months a year for class, no exceptions."

It wouldn't be so bad if I was in a field of study that was, you know, marketable. In demand. No one gives a fuck about educated artists. I'm constantly looking for ways to get my debts forgiven/discharged, like trying to catch my first school in lies and then claim I was misled. It's not that I don't want to repay what I owe - it's just these debts will keep me stuck here because I can't afford to repay them on the kind of salary I'd earn with my degrees. So it's an act of desperation.

@Snark, I actually have considered writing a book...Crazy mother follies (dotted with info on narcissists and how to deal with them). I read a book recently called "Shit My Dad Says" and if that can get published, I bet I could do similar things regarding my mother's behavior, especially if I include stories of her idiot.

@satansbitch, I'd love to Baker Act her, but I think she would probably just lie to whomever treats her and get off the hook. Plus I worry if she has to spend three days in the psych ward and miss work, she could get fired (which would be my fault). Or when she gets out and comes home, my life will be an even bigger living hell and everything would be my fault. I just don't think it's worth having to suffer more to lock her up for 72 hours.

I could probably Baker Act myself. I've been wanting to die because of my mother for about 10 years (never had the balls to actually kill myself), and I bet that would be enough to get me in. But then I'd hear about it from her that the psych bills are so high, and she doesn't want people to know her daughter was in the psych ward (she works at the hospital). So I think that would do more harm than good.

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Cambion
Sorry to hear other folks have had to deal with crazy 'rents in regard to school and homework too. Ugh, college is a whole other story - my mother somehow got it in her head that ANY college degree would result in a six-figure job. I knew that wasn't true, but I didn't realize when I enrolled that grads are a dime a dozen and I did not have a better chance of getting a job because I got a degree. Someone told my mother I could make a good living doing art, so she made me go to school, and I chose a school without researching it. Though I will laugh when my lenders go after Mom's money - would serve her right. I hope they garnish her paychecks - she wanted me to go to college so fuckin' bad, she can pay for it.

Mine wanted me to go to college too but didn't want me in a field where I had to spend too much time studying if that makes sense. At first they were all for that, but then my sister, who had graduated with honors, decided to try to get into medical school instead of moving out of state and going to graduate school, all that went by the wayside and my reason for going to college was to provide support for her.

For some reason, she wanted me with her just about everywhere, and I didn't understand why. My parents insisted she needed support from me to get into medical school, and I didn't understand why this so called support included dropping whatever I was doing to go shopping with her, go to the library with her, go to football games with her, go with her to visit her friends I didn't care for, go to parties, all for support. I remember once I had a test to study for and my parents insisted I go with her to a drug store to buy a greeting card because she needed me there for support. It was all just crazy.

All the support I gave her apparently wasn't enough, because her MCAT scores were only average, but she still got in, and she had to take a stress leave for her first year and then get reinstated, then a year later she dropped out. My parents think I'm to blame because I didn't support her enough, which to them means being absolutely thrilled to drop whatever I'm doing and go do what she wants, or to transfer to a college near where she was going to medical school so we could get an apartment together and I could be her houseboy so she wouldn't have to do mundane things like cook her own meals, do laundry, etc., because she was too good for that.

I no longer have contact with my family and even though I don't have 6 figure job, I'm doing OK and I'm happy.

JD