August 29, 2005
Kids on a short leash
Colleges Try to Deal With Hovering Parents
They’re called “helicopter parents,” for their habit of hovering — hyper-involved — over their children’s lives. Here at Colgate University, as elsewhere, they have become increasingly bold in recent years, telephoning administrators to complain about their children’s housing assignments, roommates and grades.
Recently, one parent demanded to know what Colgate planned to do about the sub-par plumbing her daughter encountered on a study-abroad trip to China.
Really. Her daughter is going to China, and Colgate is going to do something about it? These are the types of parents that make the Filthy Rich kids into such wussies.
I realize that for a lot of these parents, they feel very good to help their kids out. After all, nobody wants to see their kids having to struggle. Many of these baby boomers want nothing more than to see their kids happy and taken care of. But some day, those kids need to face reality. The later that day comes, the harder it is to accept.
Growing up, my parents and I had a bit of an adversarial stance. My dad is a bit of a perfectionist and prefers to be in control, and I’m pretty fiercely individualistic. For me, that transition going off to college and then moving out into the real world was not all that hard. My parents, though I don’t know if they were doing it consciously or not, taught me how to deal with my own problems and how to take care of myself. I still struggle with the instant-gratification issues that plague my entire generation, but when I can’t get what I want, I know it’s my responsibility to take care of it, and only my responsibility. I see my parents as a helping hand if I ever should need one, and I know that they will be there if I do. But for me, asking my parents for anything is an absolute last resort.
For these kids, it’s the first step when anything is not to their liking:
“This is a group of parents who have been more involved in their children’s development since in utero on than any generation in American history,” said Helen E. Johnson, author of “Don’t Tell Me What To Do, Just Send Money,” a guide for college parents. “I think colleges have been far too responsive in inappropriate ways to this very savvy group of consumers.”
Another factor is cell phones. The era of the 10-minute weekly check-in from the pay phone in the hall has given way to nearly constant contact. Rob Sobelman, a Colgate sophomore, says when students walk out of a test, many dial home immediately to report how it went. One friend checks in with her mother every night before going to sleep, he said.
“Even 10 years ago, parents couldn’t even get hold of their children,” said Colgate President Rebecca Chopp. “If you reached them once a week it was a miracle.” Now she says she’s hearing from older alumni who are “worried their grandchildren won’t learn accountability and responsibility.”
I see this very prevalently, even among my friends. Two sisters, when each graduated college, wanted new cars. Their grandfather bought the cars with cash and is charging them payments, but with 0% interest on the loan. He’s doing so to teach them responsibility. That sounds fine and dandy, but here’s the kicker. He’s charging them $300/month, for a VW Passat and an Audi A4. That’s about 75-month financing, and 100-month financing, respectively. Helping your grandkids to buy cars that they have no hope of affording without your help? That’s not teaching them responsibility. The day will come when they might have to buy their own cars, and all of a sudden it’s a Mazda, not a Maserati. That will be a very disappointing day.
Colgate says it has ample resources to help students. But when parents call, unless there’s a safety risk, they’re usually told to encourage their children to seek out those resources themselves.
As for the China inquiry, Weinberg said, “we tried to explain in the 21st century, the ability to plop down in a foreign country and hit the ground running is a fundamental skill.”
I quoted Heinlein the other day: “Don’t handicap your children by making their lives easy.†This is especially true today. As a culture, we are seeing more and more kids move away from their parents when they finish college. I moved from Chicago to California and settled in Georgia. My wife went to college 10 hours away from home, and now has moved 2000 miles away from her family with me. Cellphones and air travel is making the world smaller, but Mom and Dad can’t solve all the day-to-day problems. Preparing your kids to be self-sufficient is the only way to ensure that they will be successful. Helping them through every little mess, while it might make you feel good, is only going to hurt them in the long run.
My views of parenting are that when my kids are very young, I need to clean up the outside messes and punish them myself when they do something bad. As they get older, they need to transition to taking care of themselves and accepting the consequences the world gives them for what they do. By the time they get to college, they should be able to function almost completely self-sufficiently. Anything else is a doing a disservice to them as a parent.
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Good article Brad. We’ve worked very hard to teach our children that they are responsible for their own lives. When the kids were teenagers, we bought a car for $2,000. that they could drive. The car belonged to us. They paid their own insurance and gas. They only had libility on the car and knew that if they had an accident, that was their fault, that they were out a car. Needless to say none of my kids had an accident that was their own fault. They learned to be very careful drivers.
When Bonnie went to college she had a scholarship for tuition and books. We told her she was responsible for her own living expenses. She worked during the summer to earn her apartment rent (which she split with a roommate) and had a part time job, during the semester, where she earned her food and utility money. When she was off at school, we talked maybe once a week on the phone and she did not have a cell phone at that time. She did very well and has turned out to be a responsible adult.
It is our job as parents to raise responsible children. TF and I were fiercly independent as newlyweds. I remember my dad telling me that once you are on your own, don’t come back. He said that if you have a problem with your marriage, you work it out.