Can’t Even Escape Her At College
“He was a newly enrolled freshman in college, and the poor kid’s mom would come to the school and walk with him through the cafeteria line picking out what she thought he should be eating. She did this for all three meals. Poor guy was so embarrassed.”
Mother-In-Law Knows Best
“My cousin’s mother-in-law coddled my cousin’s husband so much that when they arrived home from their honeymoon, his mom was there in his kitchen making dinner because she was ‘the only one who knows what her baby likes.’ (Spoiler: nothing containing any type of fruit or vegetable, which have never crossed his lips because if he didn’t want to try it he should never have to). She also still goes over to their house before every vacation to pack his suitcase for him. Because a 35-year-old award-winning teacher and father of two couldn’t possibly know how to pack his own suitcase and obviously neither could his wife.
My cousin was pretty frustrated about it, but she’s got a good sense of humor, so she mostly just rolled her eyes and went with it. Ultimately they ended up moving a couple of hours away so his mom can’t just show up all the time.”
He’ll Get CANCER
“I was a birthday party host at a laser tag place in an upper-middle class area, and I saw ALOT of these types. This one, however, goes down as the worst helicopter parent in memory.
We always let the birthday kid into the vest room first, so that they felt special, and so we could make sure they knew how to play. Well when I pulled Jimmy (or whatever) into the room first, his father comes barreling up to my coworker who was blocking the door from the swarms of other tiny children waiting their turn. He’s literally yelling at the top of his lungs ‘LET ME IN THERE, THAT’S MY SON IN THERE!’ like we were literally kidnapping him before his eyes. Once he was in he calmed down a bit and watched while the kids played tag.
After the game, it was birthday cake time. I don’t know how many of y’all know about the consistency of different birthday candles, but this kids cake had the cheap little ‘happy birthday’ letter candles that melt atrociously fast. Naturally, tiny droplets of wax got all over the cake, but it’s non-toxic and kids usually just don’t care, right? NOPE. Heli-dad tells me the wax is a carcinogen and that I will not serve the cake until I have removed every single bit of wax. He even sat and carefully watched me do it. I did my best, but apparently it wasn’t enough because he didn’t tip. Kids gonna be messed up one day.”
Utensils Are Hard
“At my last workplace we hired a new admin – 19, finished school, really well presented and spoken, engaged to be married.
We work out pretty quick that she was pretty naive and didn’t have many…let’s call them life skills. In the first few months we had to teach her:
1) How to make tea and coffee, she had no idea, but okay some people don’t drink it
2) How to deposit a check into her bank account. Really? Also, how to withdraw money from a branch vs an ATM
3) How to tell if perishables like milk were still in date. She didn’t know about use by or best before dates. Did I mention they were trying for a kid?
4) My personal favorite: how to use a knife and fork. She could not cut up her own meal. Her mother had always done it for her and when she moved in with her fiancé, he took over those duties.
Sweet kid, but the thought of her looking after a little one full time scares me.”
Beyond Helicopter
“This goes beyond helicopter parent, this parent was convinced that I had a personal vendetta against her son.
I worked at a daycare in my early 20s in the infant room. The mom in question was an employee that worked with the older kids.
She would come to check on him every 5-10 minutes throughout the day, and accuse me of all kinds of awful things if she perceived anything to be wrong, and always made sure we were alone when she did it, like:
1) His hands and elbows had little marks from ‘tummy time’ = I must be beating him.
2) He had a tiny (self-inflicted) scratch on his face = I attacked him with my fingernails
3) He spit up after a bottle = I must have fed him poisoned food
4) He slept 10 minutes longer than normal at nap time = I must have given him something to ‘make’ him sleep.
And the list goes on…
One day, she brought him some Oreos to eat (at 7 months old!) and insisted I feed them to him while she watched. Ok… Sat him in high chair, gave him the cookies. Predictably, after finishing, he is covered from head to toe. She insists that I bathe him. OK… Bath. Clean baby. She leaves, comes back a little while later, and finds a tiny speck of cookie under one of his fingernails and BLOWS up at me.
The next day, I requested a transfer to another classroom and told my supervisor what was going on. She didn’t really believe me, but gave me the transfer. A week or so later, I was outside supervising the 3-year-olds on the playground. She came stomping outside, holding her son, who had a TINY tiny little mark on his forehead (not a bruise, not a scratch, just the kind babies get every day from normal activity) and asked me what I had done to him!
Seriously, lady? I quit shortly after that, mainly to get away from her.”
Holy Hot Dog!
“A 13-year-old kid down the street – his mom, dad, and grandma were always with him. ALWAYS. He had NEVER been away from them even when they have a nanny to watch him, one of them was there. The kid was never on his own for anything and the creepiest thing I saw them do? We invited them to a party in the park and when the kid asked for a hot dog, the mom FREAKED out, but not because it was a hot dog (some parents have dietary restrictions), but because I served them whole! She took the hot dog from his hand and cut it for him in little baby bites (like I would do for my 1-year-old at the time, then handed it back to him like she saved his life. Let me get this straight – he was a normal teen with no mental impediments. The dad took him to the bathroom with a gallon of sanitizer and baby wipes and make ‘sure’ he washed his hands before eating.
After the BBQ park party the boy stopped hanging out with my boy and I think it’s a direct result of the mom freaking out about me handing out whole hot dogs to my then 10-year-old. I find that nuts because you are supposed, to in my mind, be raising your kids to be functional adults at the BARE minimum.”
A Special Diet
“My mom. Even my dad was afraid of her. Honestly, it’s hard to tell what’s helicopter parenting and what isn’t straight up child abuse.
I first suspected something wasn’t normal about my childhood when I was 13 and she finally let me hang out with my friends, unsupervised, after school only on the condition that she would drive around and watch us from the road.
When I was 14 she spent several hours yelling at me, beating me with a broom, and filling my mouth with soap after I lied to her and she found out I was friends with someone she didn’t approve of.
When I was 15 and started getting acne, she believed that she could eliminate it by putting me on a special diet: no fat, no sugar, no nuts, no meat except chicken, no cheese, and a ton of other stuff I can’t remember. For a year straight, I ate only rice, vegetables, and low-fat meat. Around this time she was also paranoid that I would grow up to be short and would never find a wife, so every day after school I was forced to hang onto a bar in our basement so gravity could stretch my body out.
She continued to impose this diet on me for years, even after I left home and went to college (which, by the way, she didn’t want me to go to. She insisted I go to a different one that was ‘better’ and also closer to home). Luckily for her I realized how unhealthy it was so whenever I wasn’t home, I’d eat whatever I want. When I took my prom date out to a restaurant before prom when I was 17, she actually called the restaurant beforehand and told them to look out for me specifically and to not use any butter in my meal.
As I got older, I suspect she began to sense that her reign of terror would be ending. She began ‘disapproving’ of all of my friends. She tried to eliminate my social life and make her dependent on me. I had to lie to her every time I went out. She always insisted she was flawless and never made a mistake in her life or did anything wrong. After I went to college, she insisted I move back with her after I graduated and would always talk about how she hoped we could live together again after I graduated. She never accepted I moved on and she cried very dramatic tears of agony whenever I went back to college after breaks.
She’s dead now. Honestly I can’t say I miss her all.”
You Don’t Like Pizza
“My best friend’s first proper girlfriend was definitely sheltered. They met in the first year of university and were together for about a year. This girl lived with her mum in a tiny terraced cottage. This two-story house basically had the floor area of a single car parking space, so they really were living on top of each other. Not that they were poor, even these tiny houses are worth a lot around where I live. She was a nice girl, but she was completely incapable of making decisions by herself as her mum decided everything for her, like what she should wear, what she liked to eat, how she should do her coursework, what films she liked, everything. She was literally told what she liked and never questioned it. For example, she insisted that she didn’t like pizza, but when we went to a pizza place she loved it. Turned out her mum had just told her she didn’t like it, so she just assumed she didn’t. Obviously her mum hated her being ‘taken away’ from her control and forced her to break up with my friend after she found out we were going to the cinema on the day they always went shopping together. We turned up at their house and this girl just said ‘mum says you are a bad influence and I can’t see you anymore’ and closed the door on us. Shame as when she opened up she was really nice, and she was starting to become her own person, but her mum just wouldn’t allow it.”
A Life Of No Freedom Turns Sour
“I had a friend in high school whose mother was there every day, all day. She walked him to class, rehearsal, music lessons, even the freaking bathroom. This kid was brilliant – perfect sat scores, accomplished musician, amazing actor, but still, it was insane. Took the entire year to get her to stop, he ended up hiding from her after a while. We gave him his first soda, gum, candy bar – he was completely deprived of eating anything sweet. His family was nuts – father was an ex priest who banged the organist, mother was an ex-nun, both completely crazy. We were all so proud when he went to college 800-miles away. Then it went very bad.
Originally the story was he committed suicide, which made no sense. Everything was going his way – had a full scholarship, escaped his parents and even more amazing, a beautiful girlfriend, his first. Then his mother kept insisting it was murder, saying that the mafia had killed him, but nobody believed her in the slightest.
Fast-forward a few years and a few unrelated criminal investigations later and it turns out it really was the Russian mob. Apparently his girlfriend’s father took a strong dislike to him when he said something unforgivable (he was a bit awkward thanks to his crazy upbringing) and had him killed.
It still comes up sometimes with friends, and we all still can’t really comprehend what happened, this stuff only happens in movies.”
Allergy Obsession
“My ex-boyfriend’s sister-in-law has a son that’s allergic to a bunch of things. She was so scared of him having an allergic reaction to something that all I ever saw him eat was canned chicken and avocado. She would wash his clothes (and everything else) with ‘everything-free’ detergent. And she kept him gated in one area of the living room so he couldn’t wander or touch anything that might make him break out. I’m surprised she let anyone baby sit him, but I was required to wash my hands or use hand sanitizer before I touched him. And I ate a can of chicken noodle soup while tending him and she asked me to rinse my mouth out and wash my hands.”
A Caged Tiger Eyeballing His Feeder
“I witnessed: cutting food for a 16-year-old. Explaining the menu over the shoulder of said 16-year-old. Using the word ‘pee pee’ for the manhood of said 16-year-old. Checking his Instagram and starting a conversation about it at family dinner, of said 16-year-old.
This was all in 2 hours. Cringe. The poor kid looked like a broken, tightly wound, never been kissed, soon to go completely crazy at the first sign of freedom, caged tiger eyeballing his feeder.”
“You Don’t NEED Cookies”
“The parents of mid-to-high-functioning special needs adults…
Being special needs myself, I have a lot of friends who are at varying levels of cognitive/intellectual disability, but none who are so low functioning that they cannot think, speak, or make decisions for themselves. The parents of these 22-to-28-year-olds are absolutely outrageous. These grown adults are not allowed to do a single thing without parental approval, or without the parents directly behind them at all times.
Are they having a birthday party and inviting a friend their mother doesn’t like? Then they don’t get to invite that friend. ‘And I don’t care if they’re YOUR friend and YOU like them, I don’t like them, so I don’t want them at your party.’ Usually they’re forced to invite people whose parents are friends with their own parents, so the party ends up becoming all about the parents, and it’s as awkward as you’d imagine.
One time I brought a plate of cookies to share at one of our bowling nights because I thought it was a nice thing to do. I opened them and left them out on the table for anyone who wanted any. My friends asked me what the cookies were for, are they for them, and could they have any. ‘Yep, I brought them for you. Go ahead, help yourselves.’ By the end of the day, there was hardly a dent in the pile of cookies. Why? SO many parents saying: ‘Don’t you take any of those.’ ‘No, you can’t have those.’ ‘You don’t NEED cookies.’ ‘Put that down, please.’ That was the end of my bringing cookies/cupcakes in to share…
The parents have to be directly behind or beside their kid at all time at every single party and every single outing hosted by our centers. I don’t mean just in the same room, within calling distance, or in the same building, I mean directly beside them at ALL times.
My friend, aged 25, was not allowed to have diet soda at a birthday party because ‘diet soda is not healthy’ and ‘you can have WATER, that’s IT.’
These 22-to-28-year-old grown men and women still get ‘grounded’ by their parents, still have to ‘be careful what they say or do or else their mom will punish them.’
I’ve given up trying to invite my friends to parties or outings or…anything, and it freaking sucks because I’ve had to miss out on a lot of holidays and birthdays spent with my friends (after years of not even having friends TO celebrate holidays and birthdays with). Their parents either show up with them and make everything awkward, or outright tell them, ‘No, you’re not going to a party at Nova’s.’ (Bear in mind, I have a reputation as the ‘bad girl’ in the parents’ eyes, when I’m probably the weakest ‘bad girl’ you ever will meet as I do not drink, I do not use illicit substances, I do not smoke anything, I am an overachieving university student, and I do not get in trouble with the law, yet my friends’ parents act like I’m going to have us all doing wasted high-dives while shooting fireworks out our butts at a party where the most extreme things we do are play soccer in the yard and eat pizza and cake.)
Lately, one of my centers has been coming under fire for serving desserts at the holiday parties. Our Thanksgiving dinner was sadly pie less, consisting only of tiny three-inch pie tarts for dessert, and we were only allowed 2 of them. Considering that the past 2 years were chock-full of pumpkin, sweet potato, and chocolate cream pie, nobody was happy. The Halloween party used to be full of tables of all manner of treats and candies. This year? ‘Sorry, but I’d feel too guilty if I didn’t serve you healthy foods.’ That’s super-nice-staff-member code for ‘The parents got on my case for letting you eat sugar. I hate having to do this too, but I’m dealing with parents that think their 28-year-old is going die from eating candy on Halloween.'”
Every Meal Taken Care Of…At 28
“I have a friend who is 28-years-old. Her mom/dad picks her up from places (parties, her job, you name it). They wake her up, make her breakfast, lunch, dinner. The mother, specially, wouldn’t let her do anything when she was growing up (going out, going to the beach, going into the ocean, sleeping over etc, was all a big no no). The mother will call my friend’s boss at her work to say she thinks her daughter is working too much or something. This friend has serious problems with food (she won’t eat almost anything). She is also very afraid of stupid things and thinks a killer is everywhere around her. She is really just starting to get better and do things on her own. I really wish she will be ‘free’ from all this one day.”
Same Lunch For 10 Years
“Meet Fiona. She is now 18, and her parents struggled to conceive for several years before finally managing to have their ‘miracle child.’ From the day of her birth, their lives would revolve around protecting Fiona from any possible danger that could come to her.
Fiona was the kind of child who would cry at the slightest negative comment by a teacher, or the slightest jeer from another student. During primary school, that wasn’t to out of the ordinary, but it did signify how she was a little too molly-coddled at home. She always had jam sandwiches, a mini roll, BBQ hula hoops and an orange for her lunch. Every now and then she would have a banana. She has exactly the same lunch in 2018, and the same hairstyle she had back then; an ultra long brown ponytail.
For my eighth birthday we hired a bouncy castle for the garden and had all of my friends over. She was invited because yeah, she was one of my friends. However, her mother refused to leave her in the care of my parents. Instead, she insisted on staying and monitoring the party, much to the annoyance of my auntie, who wanted to chat with my mum in peace. Of course, when Fiona bounced a little too hard on the bouncy castle and started crying, her mother was quickly there to save the day. This is what happens when you don’t let your child experience little minor grievances like scraping their knee or bumping their head, they cry at anything.
During middle school, we went by bus to the local high school to use their Design & Technology equipment. Oh, but not Fiona. Fiona’s father insisted on picking her up from the middle school and driving her to the high school, which was ten minutes away, just in case the bus driver had a heart attack or tried to kidnap us all. Every time she walked past the bus to get to her father’s car, she would be laughed at and mocked.
Now Fiona is attending university, and has an unusually close relationship with her media studies teacher. As in, she and another student are constantly in this room, acting like his personal assistant. Again, this is what happens when a child is overly-attached to their parents. They always need a parent figure.
It’s a pity, because Fiona has missed out on some fantastic opportunities. The school offered her the chance to visit London for an animation course, but her parents wouldn’t allow it. She also missed out on a trip to Berlin for the same reason, and will be attending a local university, despite her actually wanting to venture out into the great wide world. Fiona has never been out with friends. She has never been to our local city without her parents. In fact, I don’t think she has actually been more than 5-miles away from her parents at any given point. This is an 18-year-old girl we are talking about.
I hope that one day she will finally rebel and break free from her parent’s control, but I doubt that will ever happen.”
Blind To Her Behavior
“True cautionary tale for helicopter parents:
I went to lunch with two friends the other day. One of them was complaining because her son Dave is 34, still lives at home and can’t get his act together. She says he is too comfortable there to make any changes.
Then the bill comes for lunch – one burger, one club sandwich and 2 Rubens.
‘Hey, they charged us for 4 sandwiches, not 3,’ I said.
‘Oh, I ordered an extra to go for Dave, he’ll be hungry when I get home.’
We looked at her mouths agape…”
The Hand That Feeds
“I’m a teacher. A friend of mine had a mom who came to lunch every day with her kid from kindergarten to last I checked (I’ve since left that school) second grade. A little much, but the kicker is, she used to spoon-feed him. This child had no issues, was completely capable of feeding himself, but she insisted on feeding him so she could monitor what he ate.”
Going To Live With Mom Forever
“I was 20 years old and still not allowed out of the house without my mom, and I had to hold hands crossing the street. I never had a job, never learned to cook, all because I was, in her words, going to live with her forever.
I got a boyfriend, even though I’d never been allowed to visit anyone’s house. Ever. She asked to see his social security and birth certificate to prove he was the age he said he was.
I told her I wanted to move out and she freaked. Called police and told them I was mentally unstable, told them I wasn’t ready for the outside world.
The police believed her and it took me a full year to actually escape. I even had relatives parked outside at night to make sure I didn’t leave.
I’m now 23 and slowly adjusting to the world but it’s hard. I can now cook but driving is hard. I have no social skills. I don’t know how to talk to people.
And she still asks me to come home every day via text.”
Please, Be My FRIEND
“I am in private elementary education and had a student one year who was the middle child of three. The mother was the textbook definition of a helicopter, but it was more than that, she also had a bad case of ‘wanting to be your 10-year-old’s best friend instead of their paren.’
Here is a short list of things she did:
1) She would come attend school events (like plays, etc) and try to sit next to her child on the floor, ‘criss cross apple sauce’ style and all.
2) She would deliver her child lunch every single day. Not send in a packed lunch, mind you. She would deliver something, like fast food, especially Chick-fil-A. And she always had enough for herself as well, so she basically tried to come eat lunch with her daughter every day. One day I confronted the student about this and made up a bogus rule that her mom had to bring me lunch, as well, and sure enough the next day I got a sub from Subway.
3) She would let the girl stay home for any and all reasons. The girl was literally absent 25 days the year before I had her (although I tried my best to crush that bad habit and got her down to 14 days absent when I had her). Some of the notes/doctors excuses the mom sent in were really ridiculous.
4) When she was at the school for her younger child (for example: when she came by for kindergarten parties or whatever), she would sneak out and walk the halls and peak through the classroom windows of her other two kids to ‘check on them.’ I would joke with our principal that this woman might secretly be an employee of our security company trying to find flaws in our security procedures. We had to come up with all sorts of new rules and procedures for all the parents to follow just to stop this one woman.
5) The girl was not a very good student, and I am pretty sure more than half of the homework handed in to me was completed by the mother.
My final interaction with her was when I invited her and her husband in for a conference because I gave the girl a 0 for missing an assignment with an unexcused absence and I basically forced the mother to admit that she took the girl shopping that day instead of bringing her to school. The dad was completely unaware this was happening and went off on her. It didn’t solve the problem permanently (as she continued to helicopter the following year before leaving the school), but it toned it down while I had her at least.
The sad thing is you encounter parents like this all the time. They don’t realize the long-term harm they are causing their children or the bad habits they are helping them to develop.”
There For Every School Lunch
“I had a friend in middle/high school who was a Chinese girl, adopted by an old white couple who were SUPER weird and over protective…
Some things I remember about her parents:
-Mom volunteered at whatever school we were at, and would sit with us at lunch to make sure her daughter was eating.
-When she got her drivers license, the dad bought light sticks (like air traffic controllers use). Any time she left the house, he would stand in the street with his light sticks and blocked traffic so that people wouldn’t hit her as she backed out of the driveway… It was hilarious to watch, but she was completely mortified LOL.
-They wouldn’t let her ride the school bus, join any clubs, or hang out with anyone after school.
-Any time someone praised them for raising such a good daughter they would laugh and say ‘She’s not our daughter, she’s adopted!'”