Helicopter Parents - True tales

This month's Oprah magazine has an article about helicopter parents. It is unbelievable, if these stories are indeed true.

One woman drives 1 1/2 hours to her sons college to do his laundry every month. It says "doing their wash is a small way she can help her two sons, who both take 15 to 18 credits per semester".

Another woman drives 2 1/2 hours every month to "clean Ethan's dorm room, buy his groceries - eggs, orange juice, etc. - and take care of his laundry". She also has access to his college email password, so she knows instantly if he has missed a class or gotten a bad grade.

"To help alleviate parental separation anxiety (and one assumes to cut down on calls to administration), colleges from New York to Minnesota have recently installed what are best described as grown-up mommy-cams on their campuses. Students can stand or sit in front of "hi Mom!" webcams located in common areas while calling home on a cell phone - a makeshift videophone".

Parents are starting to call companies where their kids are interviewing to ask them what kinds of benefits there are. "The accounting firm Ernst & Young...now offers students a flash drive with information about the company, its employee policies, benefits and possible bonuses to give to their parents. The company hopes that being parent-freindly will make it more appealing to top candidates."

"Betty Smith, university recruiting manager for Hewlett-Packard, has even found herself negotiating a benefits package in a conference call with a new employee and her mother. Some Enterprise Rent-A-Car locations reportedly send letters to parents of prospective employees, explaining positions and offers".

"Patrick Heaton hires college students to give campus tours. He had to ask several guides to stop chatting with one another and focus on the task of helping new students during orientation. They didn't like the way he corrected them. Heaton was baffled. He had not yelled or been harshly critical. Heaton asked the students how they thought he should have done it. They said they liked the "sandwich method". "You have to say something nice, then give criticism, then say something nice again", he explains. Heaton doesn't think corporate America currently has time for the sandwich method."

Even before I came of age, I wanted privacy and was not pleased when my mother was looking in my things or seeing if I had a diary. Not that I was a bad kid. I was average but my mom has always been a nosy person. She is that way with everyone. In 1996 when my mom came to Florida to visit and she stayed at my place, I learned from the past visit and got a trunk with a lock for things that were private such as mail. The previous year, I was in the shower and could hear her going through my closets. I always needed my own space. Heck, I preferred to do my own laundry even as a tyke!

Ernst & Young, Hewlett-Packard, Enterprise Rent-A-Car--thanks for naming three companies for me NOT to send a resume to!

Patrick Heaton should look for people who are not college students to guide tours.

Keep working more hours, CF people! Millions of breeders depend on us.

casseyrod Wrote:
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> "Betty Smith, university recruiting manager for
> Hewlett-Packard, has even found herself
> negotiating a benefits package in a conference
> call with a new employee and her mother. Some
> Enterprise Rent-A-Car locations reportedly send
> letters to parents of prospective employees,
> explaining positions and offers".

Any place I have worked, there were strict instructions how applicants could not bring their kids, friends, or other family members. This is really pitiful. Yet, I am sure the same companies do not understand WHY the newhire acts like an infant and cannot be trusted to work without someone hovering over his/her shoulder like a mommy.

catmeow Wrote:
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> Ernst & Young, Hewlett-Packard, Enterprise
> Rent-A-Car--thanks for naming three companies for
> me NOT to send a resume to!
>

I would actually LOVE to interview with Enterprise-Rent-a-Car - and then, if the interviewer tried to give me a hard time, I would say "hey, at least I don't need you to send my Mommy a letter explaining my offer and benefits". And then I would bust out laughing in their face.

These types of companies are notorious for discriminating against older workers. I guess they prefer to hire 22 year olds who are still sucking on mamma's tit.

casseyrod Wrote:
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> catmeow Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Ernst & Young, Hewlett-Packard, Enterprise
> > Rent-A-Car--thanks for naming three companies
> for
> > me NOT to send a resume to!
> >
>
> I would actually LOVE to interview with
> Enterprise-Rent-a-Car - and then, if the
> interviewer tried to give me a hard time, I would
> say "hey, at least I don't need you to send my
> Mommy a letter explaining my offer and benefits".
> And then I would bust out laughing in their face.
>
> These types of companies are notorious for
> discriminating against older workers. I guess they
> prefer to hire 22 year olds who are still sucking
> on mamma's tit.


I wouldn't want to waste my time interviewing--much less working--at sorry excuses for employers like those places.

Keep working more hours, CF people! Millions of breeders depend on us.

I always thought that prospective employees had to sell THEMSELVES to companies they wanted to work at, not the employers kissing ass to PAHRUNTS of the "top applicants". Yeash. It's not like with colleges, where PAHRUNTS are PAYING to ship their kids off! I have NEVER had a prospective employer KISS MY ASS to get me to work there. More like, "Please give me a job, this is what *I* can offer to YOU". It's not like there are so many high-paying jobs out there that employers have to fight each other to fill them. What ever happened to "No one is indispensable"?

If I were an interviewer, I'd send those brats on their merry fucking way and hire a more mature employee. What kind of employees do these managers think those kids would make if their parents have to handle everything for them?

I want to kill now.

My mother couldn't wait to have me out of the house, and I couldn't wait to get out. My parents always set up the expectation, and taught me, that I would be pretty much "on my own" when I left the house. They gave me the skills, but I was free to care for myself however I saw fit. If I wanted to live up to my neck in filth, that's how I would live. If I wanted a clean space, I'd have to keep it up myself. Obviously, it was a given that I would seek my own employment or other opportunities. Hell, in college I was a self harming drunken acid tripper who also managed to work 20 hours per week, and still the only parental involvement was "If you feel like you need any help, please call". Sure, I didn't do so great on my first attempt at college, but I learned many valuable lessons, did get some psychological help and eventually grew the fuck up.

That will never happen with today's kids. They will never be able to "take care of their parents", or themselves, because the fucking parents never bothered to take the time to give them any sort of skills to live on their own. It's a brave fucking new world and it's all these new parents fault. And the soma still sucks.

"It truly is the one commonality that every designation of humans you can think of has, there's at least one asshole."
--Me

casseyrod Wrote:
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> One woman drives 1 1/2 hours to her sons college
> to do his laundry every month. It says "doing
> their wash is a small way she can help her two
> sons, who both take 15 to 18 credits per
> semester".

Boo-fucking-hoo. I had to take 20 credit semesters to finish my music degree in four years. My mom would have laughed in my face if I had asked her to drive to my school and do my laundry for me. But of course, my mom had a life outside her two kids, so she obviously couldn't have loved us that much...

I can't even comment on the rest of the article. It makes my head hurt.

I took 21 hours in one semester, got a 3.8 GPA...and nobody did my laundry.

I have seen da footchur and it makes me cringe. These asshats are supposed to take over? When Moomie has to drive up to do laundry, grocery-shopping, etc.? Helicopter parents deserve what they get in old age! I just hope I'm dead before these fools take over.

I also read a magazine article directed at grandparents, discussing what their "role" should be in paying for their grandchild's college education.

Totally unreal !!!

Since when do grandparents have ANY responsibility for financing their grandchildren's education?? How are they supposed to pay for their retirement if they pay, or even help pay, for their grandchildren's college?

Breeders will do anything to make everyone feel responsible for their child.

Grandparents paying for grandbrats college?!?! My parents didn't even pay for my college education, and I did just fine. I worked and took out loans. Happily, I paid my loans off 4 years ago.

Helicopter parunts make their children incompetent. They don't allow them to see what they are capable of because they are constanly doing for them. I really hate to see how these kids are going to handle life once moo and duh pass on. Since parunts seem to be breeding later and later in life they probably won't have to wait long for that to happen!

I admit that I lived at home for my Bachelor's to save money on housing; it was a suggestion of my parents and my university was a 15 minute walk away. BUT I did my own laundry, paid for my books, supplies, instrument repairs, etc., cooked most of my own meals, paid for my car, worked 18 hours a week while taking anywhere from 18-21 credits a semester...not to mention playing in musical ensembles outside of what I did at school (I was a music major). The only time my parents came to the campus was for my recitals, some large concerts, and my graduation. Whenever I had a problem with a class or a professor, I handled it myself.

I don't think there is anything wrong with living at home to save money, when you are in college.

Deadbeats are a different story. Such as, people who refuse to do their own laundry, refuse to prepare their own meals, refuse to clean up after themselves, get their parents to write their term papers for them, etc. etc.

I knew a guy in college who lived at home the whole time. His parents were strict Baptists. Mommy did his laundry for him. One time, she was doing his laundry and a used condom fell out of his pants! Serves him right.

I served on my medical school's admissions committee for a few years, and it was a nasty experience. I had more breeders trying threats, bribes and coercion to get their brats into medical school than I could ever document.

Somehow, a particularly obnoxious moo from Texas obtained my personal phone number from someone in the school. She called me and told me that I was going to hell if I did not vote to admit her brat. I called the admissions office, found out what happened and of course the brat was denied admission.

Since DW and I are CF, we are not in hell. Quite the opposite.

Doc: Ever had one offer you a blow job? :smoke







J/K...

It seems to me like these days most parents are paying for their kids' college expenses (tuition PLUS living expenses). A decade or so ago when I was in college, I had to pay for everything myself. Everything. It sucked at the time, but I'm proud of myself for doing it without mommy and daddy's help.

This world is a sorry place anymore. I see the "up and coming" generation that works here at my company - all the early to mid and even late 20-somethings. What a pathetic bunch they are. I don't know how half of them get themselves up, dressed and out the door in the mornings.

guest Wrote:
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> It seems to me like these days most parents are
> paying for their kids' college expenses (tuition
> PLUS living expenses). A decade or so ago when I
> was in college, I had to pay for everything
> myself. Everything. It sucked at the time, but I'm
> proud of myself for doing it without mommy and
> daddy's help.


I read about 10 years ago, that about 70% of college students either pay their own way partially or completely through college. Perhaps that has changed, I don't know. I do think students who pay their own way will take their education more seriously.

Mary Hunt who writes the cheapskate monthly, advises parents to not pay for their kid's college. She says there are scholarships for college, but there are no scholarships for retirement. Very true.

The whole idea of having to work to earn what you have seems to have been replaced by an overwhelming attitude of entitlement anymore. I can't believe the general lack of a work ethic in the younger set these days. Every once in awhile I'm pleasantly surprised by a hardworking youngster, but they seem to be getting rarer and rarer. We really are headed to hell in a hand basket.