By coffeewithjulie | Leave A Comment
Hyper Parents & Coddled Kids is the name of a CBC documentary that aired in Canada recently. The name enough was enough to get my interest. But also I got a heads-up from Ann Douglas’ blog at parentcentral.ca that it was coming. In her review, Douglas concludes that this “hyper-parenting” phenomenon is largely a thing of the past:
The documentary is worth watching, if only as a reminder of where we’ve been and how far we’ve come in rejecting the consumerist parenting style that views parents as manufacturers and kids as products to be paraded before the neighbors and the relatives.
I’m not so sure, though. I think hyper-parenting is still highly pervasive in one form or another.
As example, I know a college professor who refuses to take calls from the parents of students — he finds it utterly ludicrous that he would need to speak to the parent of an adult. But apparently a lot of the parents don’t think so, because it keeps happening year after year.
I also know a senior high-school teacher who, although he loves his job, does admit to the frustration of dealing with “enabled” students and their parents. If a student, as example, does not hand-in their assignment and as a result is not allowed to progress to the next task, he can expect a parent call. And when the parent doesn’t get what they want from speaking to the teacher, they’ll move on up to the vice-principal. In a school system that barely allows students to be held accountable for their actions, parents like this only seem to compound the issue.
How these same young people will ever live as independent adults is anyone’s guess. Which is why the documentary was particularly fascinating when it focused on young adults that were not long out of the nest. Some were university students hobbled by anxiety. And then there was one young woman who seemed to epitomize the issue perfectly. She was bright, but seemingly clueless when it came to “real life” smarts. She cited being let go from a number of jobs due to attitude, lateness and disrespect for senior colleagues.
At the point when the documentary catches her, she’d chosen to leave a job that paid 90,000/year to start her own business. The business never took off and we see her prancing into an office to discuss bankruptcy with a designer bag, takeaway coffee and iPhone phone in hand. And what will happen to this helpless creature? Oh, mommy and daddy will surely take her back in. They’ve already been subsidizing her rent, after all.
Perhaps when Douglas suggests that hyper-parenting is no longer a common practice, she’s referring more to the over-indulgence of consumer goods upon children — the latest toys, video games and designer clothes — as grossly demonstrated in the documentary’s coverage of a $4,000 birthday party for a one-year-old. But even in this regard, I’m not so sure it’s a done deal either.
The documentary notes that hyper-parenting is found in the middle- to upper-classes. I live in a middle- to upper-class neighbourhood and I can attest that consumerism is still rampant in this neck of the woods! Kids wearing Lululemon, toting Nintendo DS players, heading out to multiple extra-curricular activities a week and returning home to their McMansions. Sure, it’s not everyone, but there’s enough to safely say that it exists.
So, if this hyper-parenting does in fact exist in strong numbers, am I one of them? I don’t think so. But sometimes I actually have this irrational urge to be one.
What do I mean by that?
Check back in tomorrow to read more.
If you missed this documentary, you can read about it and view video clips here.
ABOUT coffeewithjulie
Addicted to caffeine and words, I blog on my coffee breaks from work as a writer and mother. I like{read more}
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Sounds like an interesting documentary. Interesting to hear that this is also a phenomenon in Canada.
I’ve experienced some of what i’ve come, like many, to call “helicopter parenting” teaching at university level in the US. Parents who will object to failed grades or insist on parent-teacher meetings. Unless there is an extenuating cicumstance, like a parent is trying to get in contact about the serious illness or hospitalization of the student (which may effect attendance grades) I usually don’t get drawn in. I can see why these parents care, and it is good in some sense, they are in some cases forkig out 30k a year for their child to go to college, but once they are 18, FERPA kicks in and I legally cannot discuss a student’s progress without the student’s express permission and even then…I’m not sure it is helpful for the student.
Teach your child accountability and independence – be there when they fall, but encourage them to get themselves together and be responsible for all their own deadlines (a reminder is encouragement. Support, nagging or standing over them or complaining to their teacher when your child fails is not)
gosh…I meant affect, not effect. And i call myself an English teacher!
and forking….okay. I give up – all typos and spelling mistakes were unintended and i know better!
Goannatree – Don’t worry about typos! They don’t matter — what matters is the thoughtful opinion you’ve shared. Thanks so much.
It shocks me to hear that this kind of thing continues until university level! I really think it’s a disservice to the child/young adult since this kind of parenting behavior really limits long-term potential, I believe.
Sounds like a really interesting program… This parenting approach was rampant in the northeast US (where we lived for the past 12 years) – we’ve recently moved to south TX and I’m seeing less of it, although it’s still a pervasive attitude. I’ve heard so many parents (mothers in particular) brush it off with a comment like, “I just love them so much, I want to help all I can.” Well, sometimes the best help you can give is letting go, letting them fall on their face and letting them learn that they ARE capable of getting up again. I’ve had some interesting discussions lately with a sister-in-law who is still filling out paperwork and making calls for her college age children. Really?!?
I’m so thankful that my parents prepared me for real life, and my husband and I are working to do the same with our children. We are raising them to be ADULTS, not life-long dependents.
Gosh, how funny! I was actually based in Texas, so maybe i should avoid the north-east if i’m looking for students who have been prepared for adulthood!
I like your philosophy Trish and it’s pretty similar to the way my parents raised me and my siblings. We may have been at the other of the spectrum – My mum expected us to take care of preparing packed lunches for ourselves. The food was there and available but it was our responsibility to ensure we packed enough. This ingrained in us healthy decisions about food, partly because we rarely had anything you could call junk food available – it was way more expensive than the food and fresh sandwich fillings that was always in the house – so we were naturally directed towards food that was good for us. She made sure we had lunch she just didn’t do it for us. She must have made lunch for me when i was very young in elementary but i can’t remember it….i actually remember my little sister, all of 5 years, packing (with my mum’s supervision) lunch for my little brother (age 3). It was cute and that’s probably why i remember it, but it has stayed with me as a lesson of responsibility and of the way my mum raised us to be independent. Note: she raised us, she didn’t abandon us, to independence. There’s a fine line to be had here!
I completely agree. But (caveat: i’m not american) my experience in the US is that students and parents alike don’t seem to realise their children are adults. Society and the university education system is not going to hand them out jobs or give them degrees unless they take responsibilities for themselves. Unfortunately i think this attitude is now rampant in many parts of higher education that has almost acknowledged the expectations of parents who bills the bills to stay involved creating an adhoc and virtual “boarding school” situation as a result of some kind of informal contract between the university and the financial sponsor of the student. Many of my students are genuinely shocked when i expect them to behave like a responsible adult in my classes… and are stunned when i won’t give them more rope to hang themselves when they demand an extension because they have too many other assignments due or stayed up late to participate in a greek activity or even had to go to paid work.
I am incredibly understanding, but every decision has a consequence and I’m not going to let my job performance suffer in order to enable their desire to stay in a land of enabled childhood!
I didn’t quite mean for this to come out as much like a rant as it did. I promise. I care about my students, what can i say?
Goannatree & Trish D -
Thanks for this interesting discussion!
The school system here in my province of Ontario, Canada doesn’t exactly help out post-secondary teachers at all since students can’t even fail a course! That’s right, teachers are not allowed to fail students. It’s gone crazy. How are these people supposed to run our economy and our country soon?! We are enabled these young people to the point where they are cannot be independent adults, I fear.
It was a great documentary since it gave me lots of food for thought. The link below provides a summary and three video clips if you’re interested.
http://www.cbc.ca/documentaries/doczone/2010/hyperparents/index.html