Helicopter parents even hover over adult children
One candidate brought mother to job interview
Walking into a job interview with a Canadian architectural firm, a young candidate brings something unexpected: mom.
An employee with the British Columbia company says it was the first time she had seen a parent shadow the hiring process, describing what ensued as “a bit of an awkward situation.”
But she adds that there have been at least five or six recent occasions in which a mother or father sat with their grown child in the waiting room before an interview.
According to experts, this could soon become commonplace.
From policing college grades to calling in sick for their adult children at work, helicopter parents are keeping a closer and closer cruising altitude over emerging adulthood — that post-high school period at which previous generations began fending for themselves.
“This is a different planet now,” said Tim Blackmore, a professor of information and media studies at Western University in Ontario. “It’s Planet Mom and Dad. And mom and dad need to seriously consider what it is to be an adult, and what kind of citizens they’re bringing into the world.”
Over roughly 20 years of teaching, Blackmore says he has witnessed an escalating trend toward interference, with parents arguing their children’s grades, monitoring their college performance and even contributing to students’ coursework.
“Some of these students are on an extremely short leash,” Blackmore said, recalling a recent situation in which a student was protesting against a poor mark with a fellow university staffer. “The student gets on the phone and says, ‘Mom, she won’t raise my grade’ and then hands the phone to the counsellor and says, ‘You talk to her.’ ”
Linda Duxbury, a professor at Carleton University, cites a saving grace in privacy legislation that bars teachers from discussing adult students’ grades with outside parties, including their parents.
Duxbury believes the phenomenon of coddled 20-somethings is “the downstream result of our fertility decisions and economic issues.” She notes that older Gen X’ers waited to have kids due to delayed career starts and financial instability, and ultimately had fewer children — leaving them more time to obsess over the youths’ personal successes and failures.
“I absolutely think many millennials just want their parents to butt out,” Duxbury said.
New research by Brigham Young University finds that about onequarter of college students say their parents make important decisions for them. And about one-third of parents report doing so.
The researchers link intrusive parental behaviour with students skipping class and turning in late assignments, and less school en- gagement. They conclude that helicopter parenting may be robbing young people “of the experiences necessary to develop skills that are essential for success in marriage, careers and adult social interactions.”
Ben Trahan, who works in the Canadian transportation industry, has no trouble rattling off instances in which the blurred lines of adulthood have hit the job site.
“I have guys get their parents to call in sick (for them) all the time, or parents asking why supervisors yelled at their children — even though they’re in their late 20s,” said Trahan, who is based in Ed- monton. “Even had a mom ask if we knew her son’s whereabouts on a weekend because he hadn’t been home straight after work.”
Entrepreneur Scott Paras recalls an incident in which an employee’s mother called to say her son wouldn’t be coming into work that day because he had injured himself with a pellet gun. Paras asked if modified duties would be required and she said her son would follow up personally.
“I didn’t hear back from him. Ever,” said Paras, a business owner from Spruce Grove, Alta. The employee never came back to face the music. “With this new generation, you expect a lot less out of them, unfortunately. … Some won’t even phone in sick; they’ll just text to say they’re not going to make it.”
Jean Twenge, author of Generation Me, says it’s hard to disentangle the responsibility of young people from that of their parents.
“What you have is a generation who expects their parents to do things for them. And they expect that because their parents have always done things for them,” said Twenge, a professor of psychology at San Diego State University.
“Kids didn’t wake up one day and expect their parents to fight all their battles. It’s happened slowly over time.”
Twenge cites two key undercurrents: “peer-enting,” in which parents position themselves as friends instead of authority figures, and a hyper-competitive culture in which it’s presumed that a child’s success demands constant vigilance and intervention.
“If you’re doing your 8-year-old’s homework, you’re going to end up doing your 18-year-old’s work,” Twenge said.
Reginald Bibby, a prominent Canadian sociologist, says critics are giving parents too hard a time. In fact, the University of Lethbridge researcher’s extensive longitudinal data paint a picture of ties between parents and kids being the best they’ve been in decades.
A national study released in 2009 found nine in 10 young Canadians felt their mothers had high influence on their lives, while eight in 10 said the same of their fathers. Both figures were up roughly 10 percentage points over the 1980s.
“While (parents’) improved focusing on their children may be resulting in some parents hanging on too tightly, too long, there’s no reason to believe that such parental interference is a prevalent problem,” said Bibby, author of The Emerging Millennials.