Forget empty nesters.
Today's parents refuse to surrender even their college-age children. What used to be a right of passage - leaving home and Mother - has gone the way of the dodo apparently. I've heard tales from time to time about kids shipping their laundry home or faxing Mom assignments expecting a return with the completed work.
"A freak occurrance," I thought.
That just goes to show the scope of my naivete in these matters. Time magazine published a report a few years ago about over zealous Moms posted at the doorway to greet offspring returning from school with a snack and sharpened pencils, ready to attack the kiddies' homework. Now those pampered darlings are entering college in great numbers, with Mom's and/or Dad's apron strings still attached.
What would have humiliated many of us back when - imagine Mom or Dad telephoning or emailing a professor regarding a grade, or phoning you five times a day - unTHINKable to those of us who were reminded several times a week, " I'm not always going to be around. " When I was attending a journalism workshop for two weeks the summer before my Junior year in high school, I called home to arouse a little sympathy about the l-o-n-g hours, beastly heat, mean dorm personnel, and lousy food, and my father's words to me were, "You're in the Army now." They did not call the university to bitch that their little darling was uncomfortable. It obviously made quite an impression, since it's been about 100 years since that summer. That was one of two calls home. The other was to ask if I could go home with a new friend instead of coming straight back to them. See? It worked!
Today I was reminded of all this, because CNN carried a story on its web site about overbearing egomaniacs who see their children's education as another portfolio holding, the university personnel as their servants or staff. My generation takes a lot of heat, but this even offends me! Many years ago tomorrow I was off to college as a Freshman. I packed my own stuff, in those days I made a lot of my own clothes, I had planned out a rationing system for toiletries and all, because I had only so much money, and Mom and Dad drove me there, had lunch with all the other newbie students and parents, helped me carry my belongings up to my room on the third floor - the elevator was broken - and they were off.
And we were on our own. Child abuse!
5 comments:
OH, child abuse?
What about Noel Adamson? yes a terorist! i hope he moves in next to you. Imagine being terrorized with a gun. with little children
DO YOUR HOMEWORK GIRL. s id
Freshmen (plebes, doolies) at our military academies now are allowed to carry cell phones. Most of them have their congressmen on speed-dial so they can log a formal complaint if they don't like the grade on their latest test or paper. They are also on the www, as the academies now require all new students to purchase computers and use them for assignments. This is happening at institutions where walking directly across the quadrangle used to be considered a privilege, and people would run 1.5 miles in under nine minutes just to earn a coke. If this is the case at our military academies, how bad is it at the other 1,0000 or so institutes of higher learning in our country? Where is the sense of self-reliance? How is leadership developed in this environment?
Anon.,
I think the uber parents believe they'll never have to relinquish the spotlight. The kids are an extention of their egos more than anything else. A survey done in Greenwich or Westport (CT) among the offspring of the very wealthy people there showed that the teenagers were miserably unhappy. They had no meaningful relationships with adults and understood that they were mostly statistics on their parents' resumes. Yet these are the kids who'll get into Harvard and Princeton to rule the world someday.
Misapplication of money and time have spoiled or ruined many things and people.
I'm not sure where the generational dividing lines are drawn. So I'll say this thusly and try to correct any misapprehensions later.
The parents of my generation were some of the worst ever. Of course, this comes from someone who never procreated. So I suppose a detahced viewpoint is easy for me. But I do not recall ever seeing such an uninformed, narcissistic, obsessive group of parents than many of my age.
And those children?
Oh my. I fear for my old age when I may not be strong enough to fend myself, much less defend myself from this offspring.
Overarching generalization? Sure it is. But, like some stereotypes, regrettably true all too frequently.
Hi, Ice Weasel,
I was talking with a waitress in a resort restaurant once, and she said the Boomer children would run around the restaurant unattended on a Sunday morning - the place packed, waitresses carrying pots of hot coffee, and the parents were in fine with that. In my day, going to a restaurant was a rare treat. I could go on and on. Ditto your fears about old age.
Post a Comment