January 10th, 2010

Filed under:
Mixed Bag, The Arts
11 Comments »

On Parental Coddling

I’ve got a friend who works in the administrative department of a local arts organization. She took a call from a parent:

PARENT: Hi. My son’s class recently watched a performance at your theatre for a school project. However, my son was sick so he couldn’t attend. Would it be possible to organize a ticket for him for another performance instead?

FRIEND: Absolutely–let me just check our records. What school does he go to?

PARENT: Simon Fraser University.

I wish I’d made this up. What can I tell you? Every generation is more coddled than the last.

Tags: , , , ,

Comments: 11 Responses so far

Wandering Coyote
January 10th, 2010
10:00 am

Oh, that is way too funny! And way too sad at the same time!

Reply

Chris
January 10th, 2010
10:17 am

That’s a bit of a small sample size to be making an assessment on a whole generation :)

Counter data point – on my 18th birthday, I moved into residence at UBC. My parents helped carry some boxes and bought me a computer. Despite having a very loving family, that was the last time they had anything to do with my education, or anything else I should be doing myself.

Reply

darren Reply:
January 10th, 2010 at 12:57 pm

My conclusion isn’t strictly based on that–it’s based on a lifetime of observation. My generation was surely more coddled than my parents, and the same is true, on average, of my friends coddling their young children.

I wonder what hypothesis I could use to prove or disprove this thesis.

Reply

donna Reply:
January 10th, 2010 at 6:09 pm

Chris, you’ve also been out of school for quite a while now. I don’t think you get to count yourself a part of the new college student demographic anymore. :)

Reply

alexis
January 10th, 2010
11:37 am

That is sad. One of the things my parents always made me do was call and book my own appointments once I was at least 10 or 12. I hated calling the hairdresser or dentist, but they made me do it. And I think I have better phone skills as a result.

When I worked at McDonalds in high school, some parents would drop off job applications for their children. Needless to say, those people were NEVER hired.

Reply

Christina
January 10th, 2010
1:33 pm

Psychologists Joseph Allen and Claudia Worrell Allen recently released a book in which they say that the average college student speaks to their parents on the phone 13(!) times per week.

Reply

Christina
January 10th, 2010
1:35 pm

Darren, more backup for your hypothesis here: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/family-and-relationships/are-you-stopping-your-teen-from-growing-up/article1356130/

(This is an interview with the psychologists I mentioned above.)

Reply

gilliebean
January 10th, 2010
6:42 pm

Was he a freshman or a senior? ;)

Reply

Heather
January 10th, 2010
6:57 pm

I’m guessing second year at least – probably the obligatory elective arts class.

Reply

Derek K. Miller
January 10th, 2010
9:03 pm

“Helicopter parenting”:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helicopter_parent

Reply

darren Reply:
January 11th, 2010 at 8:05 am

I’d heard of that term, but that article has all these other great terms: in Sweden there’s “curling parenthood” and in the US there are also “lawn mower parents” and “Black Hawk parents”. It’s a rich vein.

Reply

Add a comment