So part of my new job (BTW, hai hai hai flist! I read you, I do! I just have zero energy for posting these days!) involves working with parents of children aged 8 and up. And while I've always had distaste for the abstract notion of "helicopter parenting" I'm now being forced to deal with it face to face. Allow me to illustrate:

Parent #1, to Parent #2 (sincerely, and very calmly): I don't know if my 10 year old can handle a weekend retreat at a camp 20 minutes out of town. Five nights out of seven, she's crawling into bed with me as it is. Must just be her age, I guess!

And then:

Parent #3, to me: We'll hold off on committing to the group with a registration form. I want to be sure that this is a good environment for my [11 and 14 year old] boys socially. We've had to pull out of groups before because they weren't making friends. [NB: home schooled kids. Shocking, huh?]

I'm also administrating the communications system for these lovely parents and got chewed out tonight by a parent who "had to find out about an event though my daughter's FACEBOOK". This, even though she is on our mailing list, had a son in our choir last year and therefore had access to our schedules at any time online, and has, in fact, received no fewer than three emails with information about the event. Gee, I wonder how her kids are going to turn out? JESUS.

Thankfully, for every insane control-freak parent out there, we have a nice reasonable helpful parent. But man, the crazy ones make me shake my head. Do parents not realize that the goal of parenting is, in fact, to make sure your child can fend for itself eventually? And that maybe one should start with things like the ability to sleep alone after a decade, or the ability to interact with peers socially, or -- GOD.

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