Helicopter breeders at university: it's not about you September 01, 2019 | Registered: 13 years ago Posts: 12,434 |
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For some years now, there’s been a strange generational blurring, where kids can’t even go to rock festivals without their parents shouting “cooee!” from the next yurt. It’s usually nice, parents being friends with their kids, but, occasionally, things whiff more than a little of parental narcissism, where everything that happens to their child becomes more about them, and how they’re feeling about it.
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It’s not all parents and in any case people are entitled to be emotional about their children leaving home. It’s a huge deal. But whose huge deal? Parents should be careful that this doesn’t turn into an unseemly hijacking of a moment that by rights belongs to the child. You hear about parents sobbing as they drop kids off – not exactly a positive start to the university experience. Other parents rather overdo helping children “settle in”, practically getting in professional decorators for their dorm-rooms, embarking on huge food shops (guilty, I did this), taking them out for lunch, then dinner… How to put this politely – parents, eff off. The time when new students arrive is hugely important – for them to mingle with their peers, not sit in Wagamama with you.
A university professor has commented on “needy” British students demanding feedback and pleading “special circumstances”, much more than the Mexican students he’s also taught. Some of this might relate to the exorbitant cost of university these days, but perhaps “needy” student culture extends to hyper-needy parents too, with Mum and Dad emerging as the true, perma-melting snowflakes.
Re: Helicopter breeders at university: it's not about you September 02, 2019 | Registered: 18 years ago Posts: 9,976 |
Re: Helicopter breeders at university: it's not about you September 02, 2019 | Registered: 13 years ago Posts: 721 |
Re: Helicopter breeders at university: it's not about you September 02, 2019 | Registered: 13 years ago Posts: 721 |
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Cambion
These are the parents who totally hijack their kids' college experience as much as possible: doting on them in their dorm rooms, calling professors to demand grades, sometimes going so far as to move to the same town/city the kid attends college or even enrolling in the same school themselves. Had a roommate like this in college too - nice girl, but her mother was a cunt and pretty much took over the dorm room every weekend for an entire semester and bitched at all of us for doing normal college shit while spooning with her daughter in her bed. I felt bad for the girl, honestly.
Re: Helicopter breeders at university: it's not about you September 02, 2019 | Registered: 12 years ago Posts: 221 |
Re: Helicopter breeders at university: it's not about you September 02, 2019 | Registered: 13 years ago Posts: 7,835 |
Re: Helicopter breeders at university: it's not about you September 02, 2019 | Registered: 12 years ago Posts: 5,635 |
Re: Helicopter breeders at university: it's not about you September 02, 2019 | Registered: 18 years ago Posts: 9,976 |
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skyeyes
I worked in the Residence Life department of a major university for 18 years, and the stories I could tell about helicopter parents. Like the woman who traveled 800 miles every 2 weeks so she could show up at the dorm and cut her daughter's toenails.
Yes, really.
Re: Helicopter breeders at university: it's not about you September 02, 2019 | Registered: 13 years ago Posts: 12,434 |
Re: Helicopter breeders at university: it's not about you September 03, 2019 | Registered: 11 years ago Posts: 3,576 |
Re: Helicopter breeders at university: it's not about you September 03, 2019 | Registered: 18 years ago Posts: 9,976 |
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yurble
But aren't breeders supposed to be happier once they are empty nesters, or is that only the moderately sane ones? Reading about the toenails and the shared bed just makes me wonder how those breeders think their kids are going to function as adults. Do they think that they are ensured of immortality because their children are still going to need to be tucked in at 70?
I really don't get why you would emotionally cripple a person you claim to love, and teach them none of the skills they will need for a successful life.
Re: Helicopter breeders at university: it's not about you September 04, 2019 | Registered: 7 years ago Posts: 651 |
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Cambion
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skyeyes
I worked in the Residence Life department of a major university for 18 years, and the stories I could tell about helicopter parents. Like the woman who traveled 800 miles every 2 weeks so she could show up at the dorm and cut her daughter's toenails.
Yes, really.
Not the least bit surprised. Breeders coddle their kids all their lives and then when the kids are off on their own, they can't deal with the slightest shred of independence and need Mommy (never Daddy, it seems) to come to school and do their laundry, cook their food, and pretty much do everything except change their diapers... which, given the rise in adults with diaper fetishes in the last few years, might change soon.
The girl I mentioned with the dingleberry Moo, her mother would drive about 12 hours one way to spend the weekend with her daughter because the kid was homesick and she'd stay in our dorm room and sleep in the same twin bed as her daughter. Fine, whatever, some people have closer relationships with their parents than others. I just hated that this bitch would give the rest of us hell in our own room for keeping her awake. Mind you, she'd go to bed at around 9pm. You tell me how many college kids you know that go to bed or stay quiet at 9pm on Friday and Saturday night. I was pretty quiet, but she claimed that my typing at 3am interrupted her beauty sleep. I don't know why she didn't just get a hotel room and take her kid with her to get her out of the room for a bit.
Thankfully, this girl switched rooms. Not because she wanted to, but because her mother didn't like us and told her kid she had to switch rooms. None of us were heartbroken.
Re: Helicopter breeders at university: it's not about you September 04, 2019 | Registered: 11 years ago Posts: 3,576 |
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Cambion
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yurble
But aren't breeders supposed to be happier once they are empty nesters, or is that only the moderately sane ones? Reading about the toenails and the shared bed just makes me wonder how those breeders think their kids are going to function as adults. Do they think that they are ensured of immortality because their children are still going to need to be tucked in at 70?
I really don't get why you would emotionally cripple a person you claim to love, and teach them none of the skills they will need for a successful life.
I think it only applies to PNBs. Breeders, on the other hand, will gladly keep their children dependent for as long as possible so they don't have to "retire" from parenthood and can feel needed forever. They don't give a fuck if those children will be completely helpless in adulthood without Mommy around to wipe their noses and cook their meals. They want to infantilize their kids for as long as possible so they never have to feel obsolete. Doesn't matter what happens after they die because they'll be dead and won't have to care, meanwhile the offspring they leave behind will be 50-somethings that don't know how to wash a dish or use a stove.
Re: Helicopter breeders at university: it's not about you September 04, 2019 | Registered: 13 years ago Posts: 12,434 |
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craftyzits
I was for a long time an adult with a lot of hidden disabilities, and now that I think back on it I am sure that my mother was probably looked at as a helicopter parent. She wasn't, I just took a hell of a long time to raise into independence and still have problems due to disability. I eventually learned how to live on my own, finally, right when my mother's health began to fade. She died January 2012.
Re: Helicopter breeders at university: it's not about you September 04, 2019 | Registered: 11 years ago Posts: 3,576 |
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yurble
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craftyzits
I was for a long time an adult with a lot of hidden disabilities, and now that I think back on it I am sure that my mother was probably looked at as a helicopter parent. She wasn't, I just took a hell of a long time to raise into independence and still have problems due to disability. I eventually learned how to live on my own, finally, right when my mother's health began to fade. She died January 2012.
I am sure there are cases like yours...but I think 99% of the time, it's breeders being helicopters. I've met some people who were raised like that, and they weren't disabled in any way, but still had no clue how to adult. Like not knowing how to do their laundry, and instead taking it to mom on the weekends, not knowing the basics of cleaning (like the vacuum cleaners fill up), etc.