Helicopter Parent? Yes, I'm Guilty.

Article in today's Los Angeles Times (Home section) by Mary MacVean examining the way today's parents are more connected (perhaps too connected) with their college students than is necessary or even healthy. She writes that going to college today means "never having to say good-bye," and adds, "Researchers are looking at how new technology may be delaying the point at which college-bound students truly become independent from their parents, and how phenomena such as the introduction of unlimited calling plans have changed the nature of parent-child relationships, and not always for the better."

Lots of stories in this article illustrating varying degrees of "communication" ranging from benign to excessive (though I suppose what I consider benign might be viewed as excessive, especially by those researchers).

Example of what I think is benign (and by benign I mean something I might do):

Katie Bent, a sophomore, calls home to Seattle weekly. "For me, I would love to be in contact with my parents very frequently, but I also feel like this is the time I'm supposed to be learning how to function without them," she said. "So last semester I completely destroyed my glasses at one point. That probably would have been a perfect time to deal with it, to find an optometrist in the area. What I did was call my mom, and said, 'Oh my God, Mom. What am I going to do?" Mom found an optometrist.

Of course Katie's mom found her daughter an optometrist! Like Katie's going to know where to go, whether or not the optometrist is on their insurance plan, how much she might be charged, what's reasonable, what's not. These are financial issues that students aren't necessarily engaged in at this time of life. Lots of kids are still on their parents' insurance plans, so it would make sense, in my view, to help my kid out at this point.

And yes, I'm guilty of doing the same thing. For example, I spent about 30 minutes searching for a dentist for my college-aged son in the nearby environs where he's living this summer. Could he have done this himself? Yes, of course, he's in college, for heaven's sake. Would he have done this himself? Probably not. He's in college, for heaven's sake (like he's really going to make an appointment to see the dentist?). Should I be micromanaging his oral health issues? Probably not. But I justify it for a couple of reasons: first, I have more time on my hands, and second, if my investment of 30 minutes results in my son making an appointment to get his teeth cleaned, it's worth it.

Examples of excessive parental involvement?

• There's the story of one student named Grace who was doing a semester abroad at Oxford. "She had trouble getting permission to check books out of the library. The problem wasn't getting solved, so [the dad] emailed the foreign study office himself. When he heard from Grace, the message was, 'I'll kill you if you do that again.'"
• One student named Jamie says she gets a text from her mom every night, saying good night.
• Researchers who surveyed students at Middlebury in Vermont and the University of Michigan learned that on average students and their parents were in contact about 13 times per week. 

That last item, about being in contact 13 times a week...OK, well, maybe I'm guilty again. I admit, I send my kids emails that might be newsy ("cell phones may cause brain cancer!") or personal ("tried a nice recipe with organic beets!"), or micromanagerial ("did you make an appointment for the dentist?").

Is there something wrong with all this? At some level, I guess there is. I mean, one has to ask oneself, at what point does one stop thinking about one's kids and start living one's life? I can't imagine, for instance, that my 87-year old father is wondering what I'm doing today, and if I'm maintaining good oral hygiene. At a certain point in life, he and my mom managed to let us kids go. The question is, did that "point" take place too soon, and to my personal detriment? Would I have turned out better, for instance, if my parents had been more involved in my transition from adolescence to adulthood? Back then, in the 70's and 80's, the thinking was to not be intrusive, to let kids make their own decisions (not to mention their own mistakes). I have very little memory of my parents being involved, for instance, in decisions relating to college. If anything, they were hands off to a fault.

How did that work out for me? After about two and a half years dabbling in course work at a local community college while working part-time as a waitress somewhere before finally, at around age 22, transferring to a 4-year college and getting my bachelors degree at age 24, and then, two years later, my masters, it turned out fine, but it was a circuitous and somewhat tumultuous path filled with unnecessary detours. And there are enough "W's" on my early college transcripts to indicate that I had no idea what I was doing.

Did I learn from my mistakes? Am I a better person because I made bad choices but then recovered nicely? Or did I fritter away the "best years" of my life? If my parents had hovered over me during my junior and senior years of high school, steered me towards more rigorous course work, pushed me to apply for scholarships, challenged me to stick with my musical training, stayed in touch with me when I was drifting (no cell phones, back then, let alone email, Skype, Facebook), where might I be today? Sometimes I think about all the untapped potential that was squandered simply because there was no one hovering nearby, shouting directions in my ear.

So yes, my husband I did things differently. We challenged and prodded and pushed and steered our three kids through high school and on through college. And yes, we do stay in touch with our adult kids. Guilty as charged. But I can't imagine doing it differently.

Today I got a call from my son, who recently finished his junior year at an Ivy League school and is currently working a summer job back east. He's living temporarily in the locker room before his summer housing becomes available, and not having had lunch yet (he gets cranky when he doesn't eat), he was venting about how much money he's spending on food, how he's always hungry, how the food he's eating isn't good (i.e., healthy)...

Always hungry? Not eating good food? What? I'm all over this...

Thirty minutes later I texted him: "Check your email....I found out there's a Whole Foods within two miles of you!"

I even sent him directions from Google maps.


"The Bond: Staying in Touch When Children Go to College"