I think its a big issue, their parents before them allowed them to be their own person, but these parents are becoming dependent on their kids needing them in order to make themselves feel good and important. It’s sick, b/c now we have a generation that is dependent on their parents and lack the necessary traits and characteristics needed to fully function in society. Children calling their grandparents ‘mommy’ and a generation of parents expecting their kids to be raised in schools and daycares.

My senior year in high school (boarding school) I dated a guy on and off for the better part of the year. During one of our breakups he starting hanging out with another girl in our class. Come time to ask out for prom he asked me and not her. He felt that he had spent more time with me and I guess the ‘other’ girl was only a fling. Come two nights before prom, my phone rings and it’s the girls mother asking me to turn down my invitation so her daughter could take my place. Her 15 year old son (the girls younger brother) would be glad to take me instead… She also called the guy and told him she would pay all his expenses for prom if he dumped me for her daughter. Need I tell you we both turned down her offer? Did not take long for our entire campus and class to know about this story…

My mother-in-law is the culprit today. Not to my husband but to his youngest sister. My sister-in-law has graduated from college, holds a great job but her mom still takes her to all her doctors and dentist appointments AND she sits in. My husband and I are not allow for my my m-i-l to go to see his sister (she lives in a different town) as we might scare off my s-i-l’s rich boyfriend. This girl can’t do her own taxes let alone clean, do her own laundry or make dinner. My m-i-l believes she will never need to since she will have ‘help’ once she’s married the rich guy. Feel sorry for the girl!

One of my friends (we’ll call him Bob) was fortunate enough to buy his first house only a year after graduation. He was looking for roommates, so I moved in, as did Bob’s cousin. Less than two months later, his parents moved in next door. His dad was a great guy, although he worked a lot and wasn’t around much. His mother… well, the upside was that she cooked dinner every night, cleaned the whole house at least once every couple of weeks, and did Bob’s laundry for him. The downside was that she spent most of the time she wasn’t doing that screaming at Bob and his cousin for everything. She had a key and felt free to show up anytime between 8 AM and 1 AM, any night of the week, to do anything — I was once awakened Sunday night at midnight by a FAX MACHINE that she had just dragged into the house for no comprehensible reason. (To be fair, this was in a major city and Bob was charging me peanuts compared to the usual rent in the area.) I got a place with my boyfriend after a year, and I kinda miss living with Bob and his cousin, but I don’t miss living with his mom one bit!

I teach the “gifted and talented” students of three school districts as a traveling teacher and spend half of the very limited office time I have answering the phone calls of these over-involved nitwits. Even to the level of Kindergarten do I see this as parents who want things to be the best for their little angels do everything in their power to make students who already feel out of step because of higher than average perception ability now can be more of an outcast because mommy and daddy are ALWAYS there to make sure “nothing bad happens”. How are you supposed to challenge someone who is never allowed to grow and develope through failure?

My mom also sounds so much like many of these folks. When at college, I was expected to call at least three times a week and any time I had a major test or paper. Repeatedly, as I was away at school, it was suggested that I “just come back, live at home, and go to…” the local University. Thank God for personal determination and plain old stubbornness on my part because I would havve regreted that decision my entire life. It makes me really sick and I now have a better understanding why my college educated brother decided to give up a $50000 a year job in our home town to become a Marine Corp officer: just to get out from under her thumb. She will call at least twice a week to see how her grandchildren are doing but will expect my wife and I to come to see her at least once a month. While this may not sound bad, the drive is 5 hours round trip and my youngest is only 7 months old. At 30 years old, it is hard for me to imagine parents less willing to let go than my mom. I guess some of you are even less lucky than I.

I literally can’t even go out with my wife anymore because all she does is answer phone calls and/or text messages from her mother. It’s not even like being married, it’s like living in a house with a woman that’s married to her mother.