I'm not nearly as neurotic as some of these mothers, but I have been accused of being a helicopter parent myself. DH has asked me several times if I have my dorm room picked out so I can accompany perfectson next fall if he decides to go off to school somewhere.

I've never been a helicopter parent but I am perhaps a little too distant from choochoo at times... having trouble with that happy medium thing. DH is a TOTAL helicopter and BM was a helicopter til they got divorced and she decided it was more fun to run to bars and screw anything with a man size bratwurst in his dockers

Dh can't even be in the car without spinning around to "check on" sd to make sure she's fully entertained and content every few minutes. I have to drive whenever we go somewhere bc this habit isn't a safe one for him to have. He absolutely CANNOT leave the child to her own devices for more than 2 minutes at a time.

"Always be a first-rate version of yourself, instead of a second-rate version of somebody else." ~Judy Garland

I'm a college professor, so I get the offspring of these helicopter parents when they are 18-22. I can tell you that in the last ten years, I have seen a DRAMATIC change in the level of personal responsibility and accountability on the part of my students. And I have also seen a dramatic upswing in parents calling our department DEMANDING that their child's grade be changed to something better, or demanding that a professor be reprimanded for "humiliating" (read: correcting) their child in class, etc.

I have also seen a dramatic decrease in two things:
1) Students taking the initiative to come talk to a professor if they are having trouble in class -- and being absolutely SHOCKED at the end of the term when they receive a low grade in a class they almost never attended, and almost never handed in homework for.
2) Students having any idea at all how to address adults in authority in emails. I routinely get emails from students (even ones I have never met) that begin "Hey!" or else don't even have a salutation, they just start rambling.

I really think that kids have been taught to believe that absolutely anything they do is just peachy keen and any effort they put forth is worthy of praise. Honestly, some of the things that come out of their mouths (or even worse, their parents' mouths) is absolutely appalling. More and more of my job is spent talking to my students about how to address someone in an email, or how to approach someone if they would like to discuss a grade, or that it is NOT okay in the real world to just not show up for work one day, and then assume that their boss will be fine with it if they wait until the next day to say, "Oh, sorry I wasn't here yesterday, I had something come up."

I say to my DH all the time: If you try to be both a friend and a parent to your kids, you're likely to fail at one of them. I don't mean to be a hard-ass, but if you don't enforce any discipline at all with your kids, and are constantly fighting every tiny little battle for them, they will have no idea how to deal with any kind of adversity in the real world, much less in the training ground that is college.

I could go on for DAYS...

BB

"No matter how cynical I get, it's never enough." - Lily Tomlin

Yeah, seriously, I have my days when it's all I can do not to smack them. Thing is, these kids are so fragile (no one has EVER told them ANYTHING they do is less than perfect in every way) that it's quite a chore communicating with them. Either they get completely offended and go running to mommy and daddy, or they just look at you with the glassy stare that I imagine crayon's skids have on their faces almost every minute of every day. Nothing penetrates those kids (except cheetos and pizza).

One of the most alarming things I see is kids who invent trumped up excuses for their problems, which sometimes catches professors in the middle. I have a colleague who is from Latin America, and last year she was accused by an African-American student of being racist. Why? Because the professor made her feel "uncomfortable" (her words) in the way she corrected this student in class. Keep in mind that my colleague is LATINA -- HELLO! That works a little less well on a minority faculty than it might on a white one. My colleague is from a culture that doesn't baby their kids -- so she tells it like it is, with ALL her students. This student was a piss-poor student who almost never came to class or turned in homework, had missed a bunch of exams, etc. etc. And yet, when I asked this student what grounds she had to presume that my colleague is racist (I'm the department head, and was in charge of investigating this), her response was, "What else could it be?"

I swear to god, my mouth hit the floor. What ELSE could it be? Well, it COULD be that you are an IDIOT!!!!!

So yes, Stepmadness, there are days I have to stop myself from going completely postal. But, I tell myself, that's what martinis are for.

BB

"No matter how cynical I get, it's never enough." - Lily Tomlin