Byline: Alfred Lubrano, The Philadelphia Inquirer, (TNS)
PHILADELPHIA — Your college kid is returning home for the holidays.
They want to see you, you want to see them. It’ll be a joyous reunion.
“And it’ll last 24 hours,” said St. Joseph’s University sociologist Maria Kefalas, “before many parents start micromanaging their children’s lives again.”
What were your grades? What classes are you taking spring semester? Have you applied for that summer internship?
“This is the crazy time of year,” said Kefalas, who participated in the MacArthur Foundation’s Research Network on the Transition to Adulthood, which studies people ages 18 to 30. “Now’s when parental helicoptering goes into full gear.”
First attributed to baby boomers in the 1980s, helicopter parenting — hovering over your child, primed to swoop in — is currently linked to a different set of pilots: Gen-X moms and dads, ages 43 to 58.
“I know many absurd helicopter parents,” said attorney Genevieve McCormack, 47, a mother of matriculating twins. “My generation’s gone off the rails with that.”
According to Merriam-Webster, a helicopter parent is “overly involved in the life of their child,” not just in school but sometimes when they enter the workforce. Rather than allow students to solve their own problems, such parents are ready to descend should a professor issue an F or a coach relegate a player to the sidelines.
And with the simplicity of texting, cellphones have expedited helicoptering, becoming ”the world’s longest umbilical cord,” according to Richard Mullendore, coauthor of the book Navigating the First Year of College.
Other extreme parenting styles are also compared to a form of machinery: Lawnmower, snowplow, or bulldozer parents try to clear paths to success with force, from pushing for undeserved admission into an honor society to threatening faculty.
Here’s some advice to parents as students start winter break: “Tread lightly,” said Laurence Steinberg, an adolescence expert and professor of psychology and neuroscience at Temple University. His latest book, You and Your Adult Child: How to Grow Together in Challenging Times, came out in April.
“Of course, you want to know how things are going,” Steinberg said in an interview. “But if they want privacy, don’t pry. This is the stage of life when young adults try to establish autonomy from parents. You want to enable, not hinder that.”
For some parents, disregarding the minutiae of their kids’ lives is impossible. The best evidence of that: Facebook parent groups.
“I’ve been following these pages for years,” said the mother of a University of Pennsylvania student. The Gen-X professional from Mount Airy, who concedes to having been a helicopter parent in the past, asked for anonymity in exchange for describing what parents post on the Penn parent Facebook site.
She said many people will understandably express concerns about their kids’ challenges, mental health, and other crucial issues. But, she added, “you’ll also meet cra-cra parents who get so deep into their kids’ lives, you’ll roll your eyes.”
One asked where her son could get a haircut. “Your 19-year-old can’t figure that out?” the Mount Airy mother asked.
Another queried, “Should my daughter wear slippers from the dorm room to the bathroom? And where can she find them?”
Several asked where to complain about the “poor” quality of Philadelphia water. (“I never thought it was bad,” the Mount Airy mother said.)
Janet Chrzan, a nutritional anthropologist at the Penn School of Nursing, said a student would text her mother daily to solicit detailed advice on things like what color socks to wear.
“Another student,” Chrzan continued, “got a D on a final, and the mother somehow got my home number and called extremely irate, threatening me.”
Girija Kaimal, a professor in creative art therapies at the Drexel College of Nursing and Health Professions, said that the parents of 23-year-old graduate students have inquired about fellowship opportunities.
“I can’t understand that,” she said.
At La Salle University, said social work professor Rosemary Barbera, “parents who don’t like something go right to the president’s office without even talking to their kid. What are you teaching that student?”
Steinberg of Temple can understand over-zealous parents — to a point. “A lot of what they do is well-intentioned,” he said. “But the college experience for students is more than academic. There’s a lot of psychological growth going on, and kids need to make their own decisions and mistakes.”
If a parent gets a call from a depressed kid, rather than helicoptering to the rescue, advise them to avail themselves of university resources that help students, Steinberg said, adding, “They have to learn to do these things on their own.”
Charlie Huemmler, 25, of Brewerytown, who has a master’s degree in city planning from Penn, said that he was once a student in a class taught by his father, engineering faculty member Andrew Huemmler.
Even at that close proximity, “my dad never interfered,” Huemmler said. “A too-involved parent can be stifling.”
Money is a big cause of parental anxiety, said Demie Kurz, a research affiliate in Penn’s sociology department. She interviewed 100 mothers for a forthcoming book, Letting Go: Parenting Teenagers and Adults in a Time of Uncertainty.
Many families go into debt educating their children, she said, and both parent and child “feel a huge amount of pressure for kids to perform and succeed.”
Parents also believe that signing tuition checks entitles them to complain to college personnel at any time, experts say.
Ultimately, parental pressure can have long-term effects.
“You tell your kid to attend a particular university and major in such-and-such,” said McCormack, the Haverford parent with twins, “and it all turns out to be the wrong fit. The kid’s miserable but has to stick it out ‘cause parents shelled out $200,000.
“It pulls all the joy out of being a teen, out of figuring out who you are. And kids can end up hating their parents. In the end, how is helicopter parenting a good thing?”
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