१६ मार्च, २०१९

"At Stanford, she said, she saw students rely on their parents to set up play dates with people in their dorm or complain to their child’s employers when an internship didn’t lead to a job."

"She" = Julie Lythcott-Haims, "the former dean of freshmen at Stanford and the author of 'How to Raise an Adult: Break Free of the Overparenting Trap and Prepare Your Kid for Success,'" quoted in "The Unstoppable Snowplow Parent/Helicopter parents are so 20th century. Snowplow parents keep their children’s futures obstacle-free — even if it means crossing ethical and legal boundaries" (NYT).
In the 1990s... parents began filling afternoons and weekends with lessons, tutors and traveling sports games... [T]oday’s working mothers spend as much time doing hands-on activities with their children as stay-at-home mothers did in the 1970s....
So sad! I grew up in the 1950s, and my mother stayed home, and I don't remember her doing any "hands-on activities" with us kids. There wasn't even the concept of mothers arranging "play dates." You went outside and found your own friends, and no one needed to drive you to their houses. You found them because they lived on your block. It pretty much worked for mothers to be completely hands-off in those days.

Imagine a mother arranging play dates for a college student!
In a new poll by The New York Times and Morning Consult of a nationally representative group of parents of children ages 18 to 28, three-quarters had made appointments for their adult children, like for doctor visits or haircuts, and the same share had reminded them of deadlines for school. Eleven percent said they would contact their child’s employer if their child had an issue.

Sixteen percent of those with children in college had texted or called them to wake them up so they didn’t sleep through a class or test. Eight percent had contacted a college professor or administrator about their child’s grades or a problem they were having....
Then there are the mothers who act like they know children should be independent but they're up to something else for their own little darlings:
Felicity Huffman, an actress charged in the college admissions scheme, has long extolled the benefits of a parenting philosophy in which children are to be treated as adults. On her parenting blog, What the Flicka (which was taken down this week), she described raising children as “one long journey of overcoming obstacles.” In another post, she praised schoolchildren “for walking into a building every day full of the unknown, the challenging, the potential of failure.” This week, Ms. Huffman was accused of paying $15,000 for an SAT proctor to secretly inflate her daughter’s test scores.

९० टिप्पण्या:

Tank म्हणाले...

I see that the blog theme today is "people who make Tank want to barf."

rhhardin म्हणाले...

It's not helicopter parenting in this instance. It's normal corruption, so normal that it's not even corruption.

Derbyshire wrote in 2009 in We Are Doomed, he reminds us today,

This whole topic of education is a glorious feast for pessimists of all kinds. Not only does no-one have a clue what to do about the achievement, behavior, and math sex gaps, but government programs to address them have just the kinds of results a pessimist expects when money and jobs are offered to people willing to say they will do something that nobody knows how to do. Those results will inevitably be: cheating, corruption, and cover-ups.

Bob Boyd म्हणाले...

What is the appropriate punishment for these parents? Do they deserve prison time?

Charlie Currie म्हणाले...

I also grew up in the 50s. My mom's hands on activity was her hand on my butt when I did something I wasn't supposed to.

Spare the rod, spoil the child.

MayBee म्हणाले...

I was surprised to hear one of my best friend's husbands edited his kids' college essays. They would email them to him and he would edit them and email back.

But then, I still make my grown kids (and my husbands!) hair appointments.

john म्हणाले...

What the hell is "adult children"?

robother म्हणाले...

I remember a summer day around the age of 10, telling my mom "i'm bored" and she replied "not my problem!" and shooed me outside.

Virgil Hilts म्हणाले...

We were/are guilty of this. I blame the schools in part. From the time they were 8 or so our kids (private schools until high school) would get ridiculous homework assignments that required constant parent participation and supervision if you didn't want your kids to fail. I hated this, but what do you do. I cannot remember more than 3 or 4 occasions growing up ever asking my parents for any help on anything school related (maybe a few minutes help understanding a math problem).

Lincolntf म्हणाले...

I'm doing a writing project in class (I'm an old guy getting an Associate's for work), and I shifted my topic from Shark control on Cape Cod to the College Bribery scandal. The shark paper is basically done, but this story seemed juicier. Also, I can look at it from many angles, and still not know how I feel about it. I'm a Sportscaster who covers D1 recruits, my wife's a Professor, I'm a current student and I used to cheat for money in college (usually writing papers for people, sometimes actually pretending to be them and taking a test).

Temujin म्हणाले...

It's all grinding down to a clown show. All of it.

Adult Children are the ones setting the rules now. They're the tech employees at Google, Apple, Microsoft, and every other app company out there. They're the ones creating fun new companies based on local 'stuff' with smiling bosses who want everyone to have free hours of play and many, many days off with pay, and nothing that harms the environment.
They're the ones who send money to Bernie Sanders while waiting weeks for their new stone countertops and specially selected light fixtures from an artisan worker somewhere in the bowels of Brooklyn.
They're the ones writing the listicles about how or where to vacation that's (a) hip, and (b) environmentally friendly, and (c) women owned. Or what to read. Or the latest thing you should eat, or drink, or supplement yourself with. They are writing Rules for Fools and posting videos of themselves writing it.
They are all Directors of Trend or devourers of such. They don't watch Game of Thrones. They read it. They don't watch sports. They don't even know it's out there. But they're the first in line at the latest Marvel or other comic book 'movie'. (adult movies are not made for them). They actually watch Colbert and SNL.
And they'll be funding either Bernie or Beto in the coming election.

CWJ म्हणाले...

"What is the appropriate punishment for these parents? Do they deserve prison time?"

Yes. Otherwise, they won't know it's a crime. Fining rich people is a waste of time. It's just another expense for them. You know, like paying someone to cheat your kid's way into college.

gilbar म्हणाले...

You Know what these moms (the article calls them 'parents', but come on!) should do?
They should enlist their babies in the Army (or, better yet! the USMC)

The army will make sure that they get up for tests
The army will make sure that they eat right
The army will Even set up play dates for them to meet and have fun with new friends
The army will take care of the 'gap year' Want to see the World? Let's start with Asia!

And mommies! if your baby is having problems, just call their Sargent; He will Listen to YOU!

MayBee म्हणाले...

blame the schools in part. From the time they were 8 or so our kids (private schools until high school) would get ridiculous homework assignments that required constant parent participation and supervision .

I completely agree with this. It's ridiculous.
There's also a culture of parents just being so darn proud of their kids they have to tell everyone. We lived outside of the US for 7 of the last 17 years. When I lived away and then came back to visit, I was always so struck by how much everybody mentions just how smart their kids/grand kids are. From the time they are babies, everyone is just so smart!
And then came the Christmas letters telling us of Tiffany and Justin's yearly accomplishments and excellent report cards. Followed by Facebook posts of which universities we are visiting over spring break with Aurora (mind you: it's never Western Michigan). Then we have the posts where we start listing the college acceptances!! Oh! I am just so happy for Jaden! He's been accepted at Cal Poly and MIT and UCLA (again, never UC Riverside).
Then we get the Dean's list posts/Christmas cards. I am not kidding when I tell you one of my friends reported her daughter's first few work performance evaluations. (why? Because they were GREAT)

In Tokyo, nobody's kid is quite good enough. In London, your kids is a bit of a twit but you love him. In America? You are amazing because your kid is stellar.

MadisonMan म्हणाले...

I will say that my wife has made dentist appts for our kids for when they come into town. (That ends soon as the older kid is about to age out).

Doing too much stuff for kids sends a message: You are incompetent, and I, the parent, knows all! Send that message enough, and eventually the kid will believe it to their detriment.

Wince म्हणाले...

Why keep your nose in a geometry book when it seems everybody else has all the angles figured out for them?

Gunner म्हणाले...

I think if Felicity Huffman was getting some better "playdates" from a guy, she wouldn't be such a helicopter parent.

Big Mike म्हणाले...

@EDH, point of information. Trigonometry is the part of math where you calculate angles, not geometry.

Larry J म्हणाले...

Somewhere along the way, people lost the true goal of parenting. It's the fundamental responsibility of parents to raise their children to become fully functionng, responsible adults. We don’t need fully grown children. We have far more than we need of those. Your sns are future men, your daughters are future women. Cripplng their children by not letting them mature, make mistakes and learn from them, and learning to accept responsibility aren’t the acts of loving parents. We’re seeing the fuits of such folly in Generation Snowflake.

Oso Negro म्हणाले...

@ Robother - my Mother was also a childhood boredom denier.

mockturtle म्हणाले...

Adversity and challenges in life can build character. To deprive children of either is to eliminate the learned ability to cope.

Big Mike म्हणाले...

Back when my kids were old enough to enter high school science fairs I asked my firm’s Chief Technology Officer how much help he thought a technical parent should give. He told me that under no circumstances was he going to let some other kid’s father beat his kid’s father. I took his point l, but I made sure to use those lprojects as an opportunity to teach real science, and not just beat other kids’ parents.

Schools contribute to this, of course. When our oldest son entered middle school there was a back to school night for the parents where a teacher showed us what projects worthy of an A looked like versus projects only worthy of a C. The C projects looked as though an adolescent had done them, appropriately enugh. The A projects — in most cases I imagine that the first time the kids saw it was when mom or dad gave it to them to put in their backpacks. So the wife and I helped our sons, but the kids did the real work. This meant they ddn’t always get an A, but it did mean that they learned.

Big Mike म्हणाले...

Sixteen percent of those with children in college had texted or called them to wake them up so they didn’t sleep through a class or test.

Wife is guilty. In fairness to her it was because our son asked her to — he had an alarm clock next to his bed and an alarm function on his cell phone, but his mother was the failsafe. It wasn’t too bad because we were in Virginia and he was going to school in the Pacific time zone.

Laslo Spatula म्हणाले...

Ima gonna connect the dots for you all.

July 2018: Scarlett Johansson is attacked for announcing she would play a transgender role in an upcoming movie, and ends up withdrawing from the movie:

"When news of the project broke this week, online commentators began to criticize Johansson, a cisgender woman, for choosing to play a transgender man, arguing that the role should have gone to a transgender actor..."

November 2017: Jeffrey Tambor has to quit his TV series due to 'sexual misconduct'. The show was "Transparent", where he played a transgender character.

In 2005 Felicity Huffman starred in the movie "Transamerica": the film tells the story of Bree, a transgender woman, who goes on a road trip with her long-lost son Toby.

Cis people best not be fucking with the wrong people.

I am Laslo.

alan markus म्हणाले...

@gilbar said...
You Know what these moms (the article calls them 'parents', but come on!) should do?
They should enlist their babies in the Army (or, better yet! the USMC)


As an older than normal father of a soon to be 20 year old daughter, and someone who would probably rank 5 or 6 on a scale this type of parent, I would gladly pay a year's worth of college tuition for some kind of "boot camp" style intervention. Something that gets young adults out of the social media driven culture for awhile, no social competition, no cell phones, no academics, etc. Years ago (and maybe they still do), troubled at risk youths were taken on some kind of survival camp trips (Outward Bound?). Maybe I need to up my research skills - if anyone knows of some kind of "adulting" boot camps let me know.



Karen of Texas म्हणाले...

And they'll be funding either Bernie or Beto in the coming election.

Yes, yes they will.

Raised my kids in the 90s, early 00s, and I was appalled by interventionist parents - from school projects to complaints and requests to change grades to all the crap to get little Johnnie into the most prestigious school.

My kids to this day, when asked, will tell you what they heard most from me:

Child: "That's not fair!!"
Me: "Life's not fair."

Child: "I'm bored."
Me: "Hello, Bored. Nice to meet you. I'm Mom."

Birches म्हणाले...

I'm an old Millennial. And I saw this with some kids my age. Some of my roommates called their mothers everyday.

I love my mom. But I don't need to check in with her every day. I'm an adult.

mockturtle म्हणाले...

Karen, my mother said the same to us when we complained, "That's not fair". "Life isn't always fair". And I said the same to my children. I wonder what SJWs tell their kids.

tcrosse म्हणाले...

When I complained to my Mom that I was bored, she found some unpleasant tasks to keep me occupied. Lesson learned.

Martha म्हणाले...

I thought I was too involved as a mother until I deposited my middle son at Harvard for his freshman year and met the competition.

John henry म्हणाले...

Blogger Laslo Spatula said...

July 2018: Scarlett Johansson is attacked for announcing she would play a transgender role in an upcoming movie, and ends up withdrawing from the movie:

Yet in the musical Hamilton, one of the most successful Broadway shows of all time! you have real, historical, figures like Hamilton, Burr, Mulligan, Lafayette, Washington and others who were indisputably white being played by blacks.

And rapping.

Why is this OK? Why is this not cultural appropriation?

How would folks feel about George Clooney being cast as Crispus Attucks in a movie? Or Martin Luther King?

Not a complaint about Hamilton, BTW. I just don't care. I would not care if Clooney played Attucks or King, either.

My granddaughter, now 15, has seen Hamilton twice and is a huge FAN!!! of the play and the man. She spent the afternoon with me a week or two back and we spent several hours watching YouTube videos of Hamilton (The ones by Working with Lemons are terrific). I went from being completely uninterested in Hamilton the play to thinking that it is really well done.

She, her BFF and I are all reading Chernow's bio of Hamilton as well and they are finding it engrossing. If Lin Manuel Miranda can get 15 year old girls to read a serious, heavy duty, book of American history, all praise be upon him.

But still, why is blacks playing real white people OK? Where's the outrage?

John Henry

John henry म्हणाले...

I understand that Fedex does a lot of business schlepping dirty clothes home from college for mom to wash. Kids can't figure out how to use a laundromat?

Sheesh.

John Henry

Seeing Red म्हणाले...

My friend is a teacher and told me they have to incorporate it’s ok to fail in lesson plans.

Michael K म्हणाले...


It's not helicopter parenting in this instance. It's normal corruption, so normal that it's not even corruption.

Derbyshire wrote in 2009 in We Are Doomed, he reminds us today,


I read that book and kept laughing out loud as I did so. He is a treasure. NR firing him for that great essay was strike one for NR for me.

Wince म्हणाले...

Big Mike said...
@EDH, point of information. Trigonometry is the part of math where you calculate angles, not geometry.

Actually, I said angles "figured out" not calculated.

Geometry: Proving Angles Are Congruent

John henry म्हणाले...

Blogger MayBee said...

But then, I still make my grown kids (and my husbands!) hair appointments.

What the heck is a "hair appointment"?

Whenever I used to feel a bit shaggy I would just pop down to a convenient barber shop. Why would anyone need an appointment for a haircut anymore than one would need an appointment to buy a bottle of milk?

Y'all live very sheltered lives.

I haven't even done that for 20 years or so. I just clip my hair down to a stubble. A couple months later my wife complains I'm getting shaggy and I do it again. It takes about 5 minutes.

John Henry

Seeing Red म्हणाले...

I’m bored.

As grandma told mom, mom told me, “Go read a book.”

John henry म्हणाले...

Blogger Temujin said...

And they'll be funding either Bernie or Bobby in the coming election.

FIFY

A fake democrat and a fake Mexican. What a pair of poseurs.


(Is calling someone a poseur being a poser?)

John Henry

Fernandinande म्हणाले...

How Parents Are Robbing Their Children of Adulthood

Other than Madeline Levine advertising her book with some pointless anecdotes, I didn't see any information about "robbed adulthoods" - no examples, and certainly no statistics, about these kids being fuck-ups. More arrests, murders, junkies, homeless - or not? **

Today’s ‘snowplow parents’ keep their children’s futures obstacle-free — even when it means crossing ethical and legal boundaries.

So that's the definition of "snowplow parents".

How many ‘snowplow parents’ - those who commit crimes to help their kids - are there in the US? 50? 5,000? 50,000,000?

**
Not: "Juvenile incarceration rate has dropped in half [2015]. Is trend sustainable?"

Not: NIH’s 2015 Monitoring the Future survey shows long term decline in illicit drug use, prescription opioid abuse, cigarette and alcohol use among the nation’s youth.

How The New York Times Is Robbing People Of The Time Spent Reading Fake News.

Birches म्हणाले...

The whole thing about parents talking about kids' accomplishments is real. I think it's bizarre how many moms talk about who their kids are dating and where they got into school on fb. Weird.

Also the parents who get mad their kids aren't coming home for summer breaks. Don't understand.

Big Mike म्हणाले...

@EDH, in my day (almost 60 years ago) we’d have said angles are equal and triangles are congruent.

Michael K म्हणाले...

These stories are just amazing. I have five kids and never saw any of this. I was talking to one daughter last night and we talked about this. She went to UCLA and got two degrees, then USC for a PhD which she decided not to finish. She said USC had way too many grad students in the department she was in (History) and that was one reason she quit.

We agreed it is probably recent. Maybe it goes with "Helicopter Parenting" and that whole social scene.

I've been associated with USC for 60 years and it has gone hard left in recent years with all the nonsense we read about. Maybe it goes with leftism. Even the football team is fu**ed up.

tcrosse म्हणाले...

For my sins, I used to work slinging code with a bunch of South Asian guys. Most of them were in marriages arranged by their parents, and happy about it. Food for thought for those of us who had arranged our own disastrous marriages without any help from Mom and Dad.

Yancey Ward म्हणाले...

My mother's favorite response to any complaint I made was to say, "You get like that just before you die."

Leslie Graves म्हणाले...

It's pretty common in human history for some families to provide long, padded glide paths into adulthood for their late-teen and twenty-something offspring. The form these glide paths take is different in different cultures and at different times. As tcrosse points out above, it can take the form of finding you your spouse. That is more helicoptery than most of the behaviors described in the NYT article. In many societies and cultures, one or more of the sons grew up in the family business -- which is a significantly greater contribution to establishing the kid in a useful and remunerative vocation than just getting them into college (which might serve as a launchpad to a decent career) is.

There are a lot of people who don't get that kind of glide path from their parents. That's been true for many kids in many families since before the dawn of recorded history. But it's also true that in some other families, giving the kid that nice long glide path is a big part of how those families operate.

It's not a new thing.

wwww म्हणाले...

Encouraging a 20 year old to go to the dentist when home from University is not equal to intervening with a manager at a job. Different categories.

For sure things have changed. Parents are more worried about kids and supervise them more closely on the playground and in public. There's bad aspects to this in that independence skills may be limited unless parents develop it in other ways. Good aspect is that young kids are more supervised. Apparently older generations of parents thought it was NBD that Michael Jackson slept with 8 year old boys?

There's a funny fake blog post about parenting in the 70s or 80s. A no-car seat/ no seat belts, drink your tang and-go-play parenting lifestyle.

wwww म्हणाले...

Was circulating on facebook: If 70s Moms could blog.

"Little while later, here come the girls saying they're hot because it's 80 degrees and sunny. I gave them some more red Kool-Aid and told them if they were hot to stay in the shade and stop whining about it.

That gave me the idea to lay out, so I covered myself in baby oil and positioned my plastic chaise lounge right in direct sunlight. I put the baby in the playpen with some blocks while I cracked open a Tab and listened to some Neil Sedaka and Captain and Tenille on my portable radio. Don't worry, I put a bonnet on the baby since she doesn't have hair yet.

Matt had been down at the lake fishing with all the other four year olds and he came back yelling that he had a fishhook caught in his lip so I had to get the pliers and cut it out for him. I gave him some ice, told him to stop crying and sent him back to the lake to fish some more.

Around noon the kids all came back from wherever they were and I made them fried baloney sandwiches on Wonder Bread with some tasty-kakes for dessert. After that we had to go grocery shopping so I put the three older ones in the back of the station wagon and set the baby on the front seat and off we went."

http://www.victoriafedden.com/widelawns/2016/5/31/if-70s-moms-had-blogs

rwnutjob म्हणाले...

My mother locked us out of the house every morning in the summer.
If you did need to come in for an injury, she said "Don't bleed on the rug"
She grew up on a cotton farm during the depression.
Hard as nails
Sweet as sugar

Lewis Wetzel म्हणाले...

All of this "snow plow parenting" is working out for them, isn't it? I don't mean that ironically.

mockturtle म्हणाले...

Maybe I'm old-fashioned but I think young men should have to serve in the military before going to college. Neither of my daughters wants her son enlisting, however, and neither son seems inclined to do so, although they both dreamed of military careers when they were young. While the military doesn't foster independence, it gets them away from mommy for a while and teaches them discipline, a new concept for many of them.

Lewis Wetzel म्हणाले...

Blogger Leslie Graves said...
. . . it can take the form of finding you your spouse. That is more helicoptery than most of the behaviors described in the NYT article.
That is probably the most sensible helicoptering a parent can do. A bad marriage can ruin a child's chance for happiness. It has been the norm for most of history. The idea is that a 19 or 20 year old chooses a spouse based on poor reasoning. A family will choose a spouse based on whether or not that spouse will be a good husband/father or wife/mother, and will give their child the best chance at a stable, happy, and fulfilling life.

buwaya म्हणाले...

Last kid was in college just a couple of years ago, and I never heard of this.
They all seemed very independent, organizing their own foreign travel, etc.

Inga...Allie Oop म्हणाले...
ही टिप्पणी लेखकाना हलविली आहे.
Inga...Allie Oop म्हणाले...
ही टिप्पणी लेखकाना हलविली आहे.
Inga...Allie Oop म्हणाले...
ही टिप्पणी लेखकाना हलविली आहे.
Inga...Allie Oop म्हणाले...

By the early 90’s my two oldest were in college and the two youngest still in elementary school, I worked full time and didn’t have the luxury or the inclination to helicopter or snow plow, nor did I see many other parents doing it. I think this phenomenon happened in my oldest daughters’ age group. I’ve seen this snow plowing behavior in the families in my daughter's social circle. It was shocking and somewhat disturbing to see the kid crying that they didn’t want to take some sport lessons so they could get on the school’s team or some private league. These people had money to burn for such nonsense (and they weren’t Democrats or SJWs as some might want to suggest).

One daughter of my daughter’s friend is now in therapy (she’s in her Jr. year of college) because her high school basketball couch was an abusive prick( not sexual). All the parents knew about his abusive behavior and did nothing because they didn’t want to make waves or get their kid knocked off the team. It was THAT important to them.

I’m grateful that my daughter didn’t force her kids into sports and let them gravitate to what they liked. As far as scholastics, I do see more helicoptering in my own daughter with her kids, but not nearly as much as I’ve seen among the parents in her social group. Expensive tudors, private lessons nothing is too much for these parents because they were considered failures if their kid failed.

Inga...Allie Oop म्हणाले...

Whew, don’t hit publish until you’ve proof read three times.

Michael K म्हणाले...

I think young men should have to serve in the military before going to college.

I think it is safer for them. My daughter was worried about Afghanistan but, aside from the fact that only about 10% of the Army personnel are in combat, I think we will be out of Afghanistan in two years,

It's my son's and grandson's decision but I would encourage it. Boys can grow up in the military and do better in college. Plus GI Bill.

Milwaukie guy म्हणाले...

When I grew up (b. 1951) and the baby boom was in full swing, there were kids everywhere. We had two armies for the acorn and crab apple wars, upper Thornwood (the Bike Brigade) and lower Thornwood (infantry only).

The block where I raised my kids in Chicago had 88 households and five school-aged kids.

While I'm not excusing modern parental behavior, do not forget that the objective conditions were different back then.

gilbar म्हणाले...

tcrosse said... I used to work slinging code with a bunch of South Asian guys. Most of them were in marriages arranged by their parents

I am wondering how long it is before we hop from 'arranged play dates' to 'arranged marriages'?
I'm SURE mommie could find nice matches for billy and susie!

reader म्हणाले...

Responses from my mom:

Me - That’s not fair
Mom- Nobody ever said life was fair

Me - I’m bored
Mom - Find something to do or I’ll find something for you

The first neighborhood we lived in as parents the kids ran free in the cul de sac and one parent from the street stayed in their yard to keep an eye out. Then we moved to an area where kids had to be driven to their friends house necessitating coordination by the kids. When the kids were at our house our involvement was limited to keeping an eye on the pool and the computer.

tcrosse म्हणाले...

I think young men should have to serve in the military before going to college.

A hitch in the service doesn't seem to do young ladies any harm, either.



gilbar म्हणाले...

What the heck is a "hair appointment"?
Whenever I used to feel a bit shaggy I would just pop down to a convenient barber shop.


If you stop into see Clarence (right on East Bradford near the Dairy Queen), and he's already snipping someone's hair, you can just take a seat and wait; only takes him 15 minutes or so per person, so the wait won't be long. Plus, you can talk about current events with them (unless you're some sort of Commie; but then, it's unlikely you'd go to Clarence).
Kinda expensive thought, i think it's $12 bucks a head

Francisco D म्हणाले...

Me - I’m bored
Mom - Find something to do or I’ll find something for you


LOL!

How true.

Michael K म्हणाले...

Most of them were in marriages arranged by their parents

One of my medical students, who is Indian (south Asian) and gorgeous, told me her parents met on an Indian dating site,

Her father was the only man who submitted a color photo.

She was a graduate engineer And medical student and smart as a whip. From the "voices" thread, she talked like a Valley Girl and it took a while to learn how smart she is. All the kids in that group were engineers. I usually got engineers, of whom there are now a lot in medical school.

Inga...Allie Oop म्हणाले...

“A hitch in the service doesn't seem to do young ladies any harm, either. “

I agree.

Char Char Binks, Esq. म्हणाले...
ही टिप्पणी लेखकाना हलविली आहे.
mockturtle म्हणाले...

A hitch in the service doesn't seem to do young ladies any harm, either.

Tcrosse, I agree. I just mentioned young men because they seem to be the sluggish ones and they [at least used to ] mature later than do young women.

rcocean म्हणाले...

We treated our kid, like our parents treated us. My wife was pushy and demanding. I was supportive and "Hands-off". Let the kids run free was my motto. She seems to have turned out OK.

rcocean म्हणाले...

I had delightful "Leave it to Beaver" childhood. Parents didn't care what we did, as long as we made it home for supper. Go outside and play, was the refrain.

reader म्हणाले...

Summer we had to be in when the street lights came on.

mockturtle म्हणाले...

Rcocean recalls: I had delightful "Leave it to Beaver" childhood. Parents didn't care what we did, as long as we made it home for supper. Go outside and play, was the refrain.

Yep, me, too. Our property abutted a large forest and it was our playground. There were some huge rocks where we learned climbing skills. We played pioneers, sometimes cowboys and Indians. Home for dinner or before dark was the rule and 'dark' was sometimes open to interpretation.

rcocean म्हणाले...

Yep, me, too. Our property abutted a large forest and it was our playground. There were some huge rocks where we learned climbing skills. We played pioneers, sometimes cowboys and Indians. Home for dinner or before dark was the rule and 'dark' was sometimes open to interpretation.

Yes, indeed. Some of my fondest memories are playing football or baseball until it was too dark to see the ball and then going home - reluctantly. Strangely, my parents were never concerned. They just assumed I and my brother would show up before bedtime. Which we always did.

Michael K म्हणाले...

Strangely, my parents were never concerned. They just assumed I and my brother would show up before bedtime. Which we always did.

I walked to kindergarten, about six blocks and across one busy street (76th street in Chicago). She had the boy across the street walk with me the first day so I knew the way but after that, I was on my own. About the third day, I was late and heard the bell ring for class. I had already been smacked by A nun with a ruler for something and I figured this was going to be similar.

Next door to the school was a family owned nursery run by friends of my father's. I had been there many times with him. So, when the bell ring, I just turned right and walked to the nursery. The old uncle was working in the outdoor nursery and I asked if I could help. He said OK and I spent the next three hours within him. At noon, the bell rang and I told him I had to go. I walked him and nothing was said. The next day, I left for school but went to the nursery. I never went back to kindergarten.

In November, when it got cold, I would have been caught but my father bought a house and we moved. Forty years latter, I told my mother and she did not believe me.Nobody called or checked on me.

The story is here with a map and some photos.

Kids Were pretty much on their own in those days.

ken in tx म्हणाले...

$12 for a men's hair cut is not expensive. That's about $1.20 in 1959 money. I remember paying $1.25 for a hair cut in those days.

gilbar म्हणाले...

ken, i was being kinda facetious. It's Way cheap. Clarence is about 80; and loves his work.
He also LOVES American

Fen म्हणाले...

"I had delightful "Leave it to Beaver" childhood. Parents didn't care what we did, as long as we made it home for supper. Go outside and play, was the refrain."

Yup, we just had to be home before dark. Lived a block away from the school with its large soccer field and baseball diamond. About 12 other kids lived close enough to be daily members of our gang. Always had enough for 2 teams.

And the amount of freedom we had was incredible to what I see today.

Fen म्हणाले...

Inga: "I’m grateful that my daughter didn’t force her kids into sports and let them gravitate to what they liked."

Yup. My sisters ex-husband INSISTS their 14 year old son is going to be a major league baseball player. She claims he has a sports background but I don't understand how any adult who played competitive sports would take such an all-or-nothing push to professional sports. And the poor kid is not even outshining his peers at this age. And is miserable.

Fen म्हणाले...

"I think young men should have to serve in the military before going to college"

I once thought the same thing, before I joined the Marines.

Problem is, the purpose of the military is warfighting, not social engineering. If our NCOs have to spend time babysitting troublemakers who don't want to be there, they spend less attention training the others how to defeat the enemy. The troublemakers also kill a unit's morale because a LCD discipline system punishes your good troops too harshly (the Bounty Jumpers in A Stillness at Appomattox exemplify this problem). And it will lead to prioritizing character building over warfighting, and possibly losing the war that matters most.

mockturtle म्हणाले...

And it will lead to prioritizing character building over warfighting, and possibly losing the war that matters most.

I think young men have a natural bent toward war-fighting and youth is the best time to harness this kind of energy. My grandsons did a lot of paintball. Both are armed and go to the range quite often.

funsize म्हणाले...

yet more proof Cal is better!

(tongue in cheek people, there's a rivalry here)

Martin म्हणाले...

Althouse--"Imagine a mother arranging play dates for a college student!"

Hell, imagine being a college student at Stanford and your mother is arranging "play dates" for you.

Did Mom buy the condoms, too?

And these college students want to change the world? Their parents don't trust them to change the roll of toilet paper.

stevew म्हणाले...

"My mother locked us out of the house every morning in the summer."

Mine too. It was the 60's. It was assumed we would show back up for lunch and dinner, which we did. She'd probably be jailed for doing that in these days and times.

As I read some of the stories and descriptions of these parents I keep coming away with the idea that they are damaged somehow, mostly insecure and trying to compensate for something unliked in their own lives.

Lloyd W. Robertson म्हणाले...

Sometimes it seems that people alternate between being not lonely enough (the bad old days) and too lonely (here some of us are).

furious_a म्हणाले...

Back then, my mom’s hands-on activities included my hands on a can of Pledge and a dust cloth or on a vacuum cleaner or on a pile of laundry 🧺 to fold. Banana-seat Schwinns were the most popular social networking devices.

There were parents, though, including mine, who never missed a Little League or Pop Warner game, and who always had time to play catch and hit grounders.

Frankie म्हणाले...

I worked in a very large government office for many years. There were over 600 lawyers employed. Every spring we were inundated with resumes from law students requesting paid and non paid internships. I interviewed many of these applicants. On one interview, the young woman brought her father with her and asked if he could sit in. When she did not get the job, he called and asked why. I later told the story to the head of HR. He laughed and said out of the 8 hires they made for the summer, only one applicant called to ask for his assignment, where & when he needed to report and if there was parking. All the other applicants mothers called for that information. That was in the 90's. Good luck America.

Inkling म्हणाले...

When I went off to college in the summer of 1966, I assumed I was running my own life from that point on. I made my own decisions and did my best, in those less-expensive years, to cover my own college costs. And that was after a childhood of assuming more and more responsibility.

That was good for me. We can also learn from the stress the Japanese put on independence in childhood.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7YrN8Q2PDU

SwampWoman म्हणाले...

Heh. When daughter told me how "bored" she was constantly during school vacation and wanted to be transported to see various friends, I reminded her that she had a horse to ride, stalls to clean, a bicycle, and lots of other time-wasting things that were not available to me when I was young. This was because I lived in the medieval dark ages, of course. We had a family business and I could only wish that I had the time to be bored.

So, I told her we were going to the library. When we got there, I informed the librarian that daughter wanted to volunteer in the town library all through summer vacation. I signed the paperwork, got her work hours, and daughter was no longer bored. (Or very happy about it.) I transported daughter to the library in the morning with a packed lunch and picked her up in the afternoon. After her work at the library, she still got to feed, brush, care for her horse and her various collection of dogs, cats, chickens, and other pets and clean out the stable, clean her room, do her laundry, and help with the household chores because I would surely hate for her to be bored ever again. Oddly enough, she never used that "bored" word after that summer.

B Dubya म्हणाले...

What the military experience offers is a sense of discipline, coupled with the reasons for imposing and accepting discipline as a matter of personal conduct.

It has been said, at least in the 20th century, that the most dangerous weapon in the world is a 19 year old American trained as an infantryman. There are still some of those men left among us, but they don't come from the ranks of the neck bearded hipsters who populate most college campuses and gentrifying urban neighborhoods.

Stephen_Robbins म्हणाले...

Ann sez: "So sad! I grew up in the 1950s, and my mother stayed home, and I don't remember her doing any 'hands-on activities' with us kids."

Me: Absolutely! Also, back in the '50's, I grew up in the 'burbs' just outside Wilmington, DE, in an area known as Edgemoor. It was fairly close (bike-riding distance) to the semi-swampy areas, and murky canal-like waterways down near the Delaware River. We'd get there by crossing over the tracks of the Pa. RR and explore the factory waste areas. We would even 'launch' rafts ... usually an old empty 'hand' cement- mixing trough that we could pole around in, looking for snapping turtles, frogs, an occasional catfish, and, maybe if we were really lucky, a black racer snake. They'd get four or more feet long!

My Mom would have wanted absolutely no part of those 'hands-on activities!" Heck, she didn't even like the smaller box turtles and occasional harmless garter snakes we'd come across out in our yard, or in the raspberry patch.

Thing was, you just had to be careful with those snappers! But nobody lost any fingers, at least not in our group!

Of course, over the years I've always wondered if any of the strange-looking stuff we dug down into and rummaged through, especially on the huge slag heap by the Roofing Company, would ever cause me any form of 'health' reaction over time.

So far, so good!

Steverino म्हणाले...

If you hire a stooge to take your SAT for you because you can’t possibly earn a score good enough to admit you to college, then bribe your way into school, how can you possible graduate? If you do cheat and bribe your way through college and purchase a diploma, it sounds like you’ve bought a big bag of nothing. It’s like paying to go to a fancy gym and hiring somebody else to exercise for you. What do these corrupt parents think they are buying? An empty credential?