Helicopter Parents
Helicopter parents spend their entire lives hovering over the children. Apparently, many parents continue to hover even after their children have graduated from college:
Sue Shellenbarger writes about parents who seek to get deeply involved in the hiring process. One father showed up with his daughter, who was being interviewed for a job with Enterprise Rent-A-Car. The mother of another recruit at Enterprise joined a phone call and began grilling the recruiter about the benefits package. At other companies, parents are calling hiring managers to protest the offered pay packages and try to renegotiate. At GE, an offer was made to a recruit last fall, and the recruit's mother called the next day trying to negotiate an increase in pay. "It's unbelievable to me that a parent of a 22-year-old is calling on their behalf," say Allison Keaton, director of college relations for St Paul Travelers. She calls this generation "the kamizake parents--the ones that already mowed down the guidance and admissions offices and are now moving into the workplace."
I found this story via David Foster at Chicago Boyz. He continues on with:
But the levels of involvement described in the WSJ article go way beyond such traditional forms of support, and can only serve to undercut the development of confidence and independence. A 5% higher starting salary isn't worth it if the price is the failure to develop one's own negotiating powers. The same parents who focused on credentials rather than knowledge and metaskills in the education process are also failing to comprehend the importance of metaskill development in the workplace.
Americans have always liked to think of themselves as independent and self-reliant. Given the behavior described in these articles, is that view out of date?
I would tend to think that it is. Increasingly, many younger Americans appear to be reliant on either the government or their parents to move them through life. How sadly pathetic.