<p>Great article! It's from 2006, but very timely! (I love the quiz, too--I'm on the Honor Roll!)</p>
<p>Thanks for the link! I am so proud to be on the Honor Roll! I am actually stunned. I think my D has forced me to stop hovering!!!!!!</p>
<p>I enjoyed this article the first time around and find it even more interesting now that I will be leaving soon. For the most part, I thought that although the parents featured in the article are more hands-on than my own, their involvement was reasonable. However, I found that Smith women absolutely suffocating and highly annoying--she seemed like every bad upper-class suburban mom stereotype wrapped into one real person, and the picture included of their family was vomit-worthy. </p>
<p>I do have to say, however, that I don't really understand all the sentimentality. Sure, I get that there may be a few tears when a loved child leaves the nest, but bawling all the way back home? 40 communications/week? Moving near to your kid's school? Those things are all weird to me...in my opinion, those parents are too connected. I think that it's funny that one of the reasons cited for suffocating helicoptering is the fear that junior won't get a job and be successful and will live at home for the rest of his life--and yet the parents won't cut the strings and start treating the kid like the adult they want him to be!</p>
<p>Proud to be on the honor Roll, as well. Just enough contact and support, but mostly allowing independence.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Smith [mother] made him [son] apply early to Harvard and he was deferred.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Ugh.</p>
<p>It astonishes me that these kids are willing to do their parents bidding....</p>
<p>^Because the kid has enough money to shell out for the colleges he expects to go to. Oh, wait. No...</p>
<p>(But Mommy, I wanted to go to YALE!!!)</p>
<p>I don't blame the parents entirely for their Harvard fixation. I'm sure their kid was just as prestige-grubbing, and it didn't have anything to do with their influence. After all, I've been in a competitive school...trust me, you don't need hovering parents to develop Ivy League sydrome.</p>