<p>^^The second quote is from me. Back when my S was in HS, I made the big mistake of posting some of his stats on CC. Never again. People might not have “screamed” slacker, but they certainly expressed the opinion that the SAT/GPA mismatch suggested a certain, um, nonchalance about schoolwork. What can I say? He’s a nonchalant kind of a guy. And I love that about him.</p>
<p>Back on the maturity/hovering/hard to have them away subject: He’s coming home Friday for spring break. His grandmother and only surviving grandparent (my mom) died two weeks ago after a six-year illness, and we’re having her memorial service this weekend. I have mostly gotten used to him being 1,000 miles away, but the distance has been so incredibly difficult these last two weeks. I haven’t been quite sure what he needs and how I can take care of him while still taking care of myself. We have talked frequently and I’ve written to him regularly. Like musicmom’s S, he’s a “quiet man” on highly emotional subjects–though very chatty about everything else. I’m reminded of two years ago, almost exactly, when my H’s brother died suddenly. My S was literally by his father’s side at the funeral, placing a gentle hand on his back. At that moment, I knew he was no longer a kid. Now, we can’t wait to give our guy a really big hug.</p>
<p>So as we wonder when they’re going to grow up, we need to honor the many small (and large) ways they’re doing just that.</p>
<p>Sorry to hear about your mother. I hope you have good memories, and it sounds as if you really do.</p>
<p>Yes, I have become aware, as well, that one of the very reasons I am even thinking that it is time to retire from the happiness committee is that this year, much more than last year, my daughter has begun to grow up. Before that, it never even crossed my mind.</p>
<p>I’m glad you will see you son and be able to look into his eyes and see where he is at. I am married to a guy like that and it really does make a difference to see them face-to-face. Again, my condolences.</p>
<p>Of course. Forget the recession and record breaking unemployment numbers, it’s those darn parents (read: mothers.) </p>
<p>It’s just shooting fish in a barrel to blame Mom. I’m not impressed. Socrates was lamenting how lazy, spoiled and unprepared children were in his day! At least the author could make an effort at a fresh approach. </p>
<p>Signed, Hovering mother of a boy who grew to be an independent young man thankyouverymuch</p>
<p>PMK: Your comment prompted me to read that article linked in post#62. I think the author does make some valid points. I think all of us parents (especially those of us on CC) need to develop a plan by which we can help our kids take full control of their own lives.</p>
<p>vicariousparent, I agree with you, the article had many valid points. Sometimes the truth stings, and I include myself in this comment.</p>
<p>Like I said in my previous post, I think that our generation has smothered our kids. We do everything for them, and it’s not healthy.</p>
<p>Yes, the economy is bad, but this is not a problem that has developed in the last two to three years. </p>
<p>Teens and twenty somethings, even thirty somethings, do have an entitlement mentality. I know several recent grads who have turned down jobs because they didn’t want to start in an entry level position. That’s a problem! </p>
<p>Every generation is accused of being spoiled and selfish, however, having talked to many people who are my age, and knowing how my parents and their friends were raised, our generation has taken parenting to a whole new level.</p>
<p>There’s nothing new under the sun. Every generation thinks the generation that comes next is lazier, more entitled and so on. I’ve read a lot on the subject and I just don’t believe it’s any truer now than it ever was. In fact, I think it’s really just a back-handed way for us middle aged folks to pat ourselves on the back but that’s not fair to do at someone else’s expense. I think it’s also something sort of pleasant, middle to upper-middle class to focus on while the ever present real problem with children (neglect) gets none of the spotlight. </p>
<p>Yes, the article has very good points but her basic premise is, pardon my French, cr*p. Please note that she makes a living by allegedly being an expert on this generation which translates into telling people her generation what they want to hear about the next generation coming up. </p>
<p>Maybe it’s being a military family and living on bases. I just cannot stand it when people run this generation down while I’ve seen thousands of them coming through bases on the way to fight two wars. My father was in Vietnam while I was a baby, my son’s father fought in Iraq during our son’s middle school years. There are real stresses out there that are worth going the extra mile to protect our children as much as possible from. </p>
<p>I think parenting is tough and the vast majority of people are doing the best they can/good enough. I’ll take over-involved parents over neglectful parents any day of the week. And if any parents should hit the perfect balance, the industry that consists of books and the like telling parents (primarily aimed at women) they are wrong, wrong, wrong would collapse. Talk about bad for the economy because that is a big industry.</p>
<p>Each family has its own dynamic and much depends on the personalities involved. Yes, I am somewhat involved with my kids but they are doing things I did not do at their ages. I had always wanted to spend a summer at my college or law school town but my dad would always insist I come home & work at a local job. I have allowed our kids to figure out their own summer plans.</p>
<p>Our kids have NOT asked our help in writing resumes, cover letters of proofreading their essays or anything similar. They do accept the help of one another or peers in reviewing & critiquing. I am happy our kids do come to us for advice about important things but are figuring out much of the rest as they go.</p>
<p>Its true that my folks did NOT take us to college or grad school or any trips to visit campuses & things worked out just fine. We have indulged our kids more than we were indulged–we do have more resources than our folks did when we were in college and WANT to use them with our kids. Their peers also have the folks taking them to colleges.</p>
<p>I was pleased this summer that S was helping my folks declutter their home as well as our home. This is what he decided to do on his own, umprompted while he was waiting to hear back from employer about starting date and security clearance. Since most of us went to grad schools, we were not starting a job fresh out of college as S is doing, so we were a bit older with our first REAL career job.</p>
<p>In HI, most adult kids DO & have always lived with their folks and/or relatives until they get into a committed relationship and/or get a place of their own. Part of it is probably economics (housing here is VERY high) and partly its the extended family networks that are alive and thriving here. I bucked the trend my moving out into a rented apartment after I returned from law school & started my career (the house was too crowded & I couldn’t unpack my belongings).</p>
<p>There is a lot of co-dependency in our state because of these extensive family bounds–some very healthy and sustaining while some is “not so much,” depending on the dynamic & the lens through which things are viewed.</p>
<p>Of course. But if we as parents fail to prepare our kids in their need to become independent (financially and otherwise), then we are being neglectful of our duty towards them.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Cockpit parents tend to pull all kinds of maneuvers like this. Things like writing their child’s r</p>
<p>I go away for a few hours and come back to a hackneyed conversation about helicopter parents. Very disappointing, so critical, when I think we were all really talking about our feelings AS WE LET GO, and how we WANT to let go. Too bad.</p>
<p>I hate the helicopter label. Parents can’t win. Everyone’s got an opinion on the job they are doing. What a waste of a good thread, when it was so much more imaginative and interesting before we brought in some so-called expert who probably doesn’t even have kids.</p>
<p>VP-- First of all, you didn’t actually bring it up, or print the article.</p>
<p>I don’t even disagree with you that a big part of parenting is assisting our kids in finding their way to independence. But, if you read the posts on this thread, they are all from parents who would like our kids to become more independent and about negotiating that liminal space we are in right now where are kids ARE becoming more independent.</p>
<p>FWIW-- I have been accused of being too hands off, but never of being a helicopter parent by anyone. I just hate the label and what it implies.</p>
<p>i haven’t yet read the thread (apologies!) but wanted to write my thoughts first:</p>
<p>I thought this thread would be about how much our kids have to grow up, how hard the transition is for them (since they aren’t as grown up as they should be and still have such a long ways to go). When actually, it is not that at all. It is not a problem with the kids, but the parents. How hard it is for parents to transition and let be. The kids are doing just fine- it’s the parents that don’t know how to stop doing what they’ve always done and just letting their kids be the adults <em>they are</em> (which maybe isn’t the adults they parents dreamed they should be right now so they can’t let the reigns go). </p>
<p>Not meant to judge you OP- I will probably be in the same boat! It is just interesting.</p>
<p>Well, to counter the “Cockpit Parents” book, here’s another one:</p>
<p>Not Quite Adults: Why 20-somethings are choosing a slower path to adulthood and why its good for everyone, by Setterstein and Ray. It’s based on a ton of research. </p>
<p>Their overlying premise is that one of the worst things parents can do is to be too hands-off. There’s value in learning from your mistakes, but allowing a kid to have a huge failure (like not getting into college or failing out of college) for the sake of having them “learn a lesson” can mean the kids set themselves so far back they can’t ever catch up. Parents who show WHY education is important, help the kid find the right college, help them figure out how to afford it (or help to pay for it), help them choose appropriate classes, etc, are much more likely to have kids who graduate from college. And graduating from college is pretty much essential in today’s economic landscape, at least according to the authors. I’m reading it on my Kindle, it’s really good.</p>
<p>Their other point - don’t compare this generation to ours or the one before us, because they are coming of age in a VERY different world. Trying to start careers during a long world-wide recession, in an era when people change jobs frequently, and most 19 year olds understand that the job they will eventually end up with very likely doesn’t even exist yet today.</p>
<p>Just noticed the “cockpit” line about the difference between supporting our kids and enabling them. Very true, but “calling in favors to friends to get their child an internship or a job” isn’t enabling - it’s called NETWORKING and its the way most people these days find their jobs. “Not Quite Adults” has the statistics to prove that the wider and more varied your network, the more likely you are to find a job and progress upward in your career. If your network includes your dad’s bowling buddies or a woman your mom met in the PTA, so what?</p>
<p>These articles that criticize parents for helicoptering annoy me since the colleges and financial aid system are a large part of the problem in making it impossible for kids to become independent, at least financially. Colleges are so expensive nowadays that kids who don’t qualify for financial aid because of parent’s income could never hope to pay for college on their own, even if they wanted to. And it doesn’t end once they finish undergraduate programs. My D1 graduated from college a year and a half ago and has been working full-time and supporting herself. Now that she is thinking of applying to law school, most of the law schools require parental financial information for anyone under 30 years old! This system is crippling a generation of middle and upper-middle class kids.</p>
<p>I am responding to the YDS’s original post with gratitude. My DH and I sent our kid off to college and thought “job well done”. The kid’s college grades were terrific (better than high school’s grades even.) and the kid is in love with everything about the school and participating tons of the activities and making friends. So now DH and I are high-fiving each other.</p>
<p>Then the arrest for possession…and we are weeping. I know the family will get through it but we are stumbling around feeling like complete and utter failures as parents.</p>
<p>It’s really hard for us to just do our best & then wait in the wings while our kids make their lives for themselves without feeling that their triumphs and stumbles aren’t some reflection of ourselves, no matter how old they get. I know it still bugs my mom when my sibs (in their 40s & 50s) are snipping and saying unflattering things about one another.</p>
<p>Thank you, yorkyfan. That’s the exact kind of thing that I’m talking about. Just when you think you’re done, some setback makes you rethink everything. I’m sorry for what you’re going through.</p>
<p>I only mentioned the grades, but, trust me, there have been other things that have me asking, “What were you thinking?” Again, in the grand scheme of things, it’s fine – no one died – but it left us wondering, Are we doing the right thing? Do we intervene? Have we been too hands off? That was the intent of the original post – just a musing on how, even when they’re a thousand miles away, we as parents are still grappling with these things.</p>
<p>Yorkyfan, thanks for sharing. Best wishes as you & your family move through the challenges. My kids are making me crazy with their incompletes. S got one and I kept asking him when we planned to substitute it for a grade but he kept ignoring me. He finally started to work on it when he was applying for internships & I pointed out that prospective employers might not like the “I” and translate it into an “F.” That was what finally got him to finish it. </p>
<p>D is doing the same thing. She has two "I"s that we keep urging her to complete but first it was, “Yea, I’ll do it over Christmas–Spring break–whoops maybe summer?” It is maddening but what can we do? She’s 2500 miles away and working things out in her own time. Maybe she’ll also realize that prospective employers aren’t too keen on seeing "I"s on transcripts, who knows?</p>
<p>S is supposed to make arrangements to have his gear moved from LA to DC (employer will reimburse) but has not worked on that & I have no idea when he’ll get around to it. It’s funny–he’s very compulsive and careful about some things while totally oblivious to timetables on the other. Oh well, at some point, I guess he’ll figure things out the hard way? I’ve given up & will let things evolve.</p>
<p>I know quite a few people in their young 20s who have moved back home & are at various stages of contemplating their next steps. Some work for a bit and/or go to school. Not sure what they’re thoughts are–some are trying to decide whether to go on to grad school & in what field, others are doing some shadowing in different areas of interest. It’s an interesting and somewhat prolonged process from what I remember in the dark ages when I went to college & grad school.</p>
