03rd Jan 2008
Helicopter Parents Negotiate Salaries
Trend of parents hovering over graduate children on the rise describes how the “helicopter” Baby Boomer parents try to arrange job interviews, and shepherd their adult children through the interview process, including salary negotation. I’m not sure anything is that new here, but the article focuses on the trend in the UK. The article describes the five types of helicopter parents:
The agent
Operates like a footballer’s agent: fixing deals, arranging contracts, smoothing out local difficulties. It’s the agent’s job to represent his or her client at events which, for whatever reason, the client feels are simply too tedious to attend. Having an agent helicopter parent is like having Max Clifford working for you round the clock.The banker
Accessible online, face to face or via personal hotline, the banker is unique in the world of financial services for charging no APR, asking few if any questions, expecting no collateral, and being psychologically inclined to say yes no matter how illogical or poorly articulated the request. The banker is also resigned to never seeing loans repaid.The white knight
This parent appears at short notice to resolve awkward situations. Once resolved, the idea is the white knight will fade anonymously into the background.The Bodyguard
The primary function of the bodyguard is to protect the client from a range of embarrassing social situations, such as cancelling appointments and soaking up complaints on behalf of their client.The black hawk
Dreaded by teachers and educational administrators, the black hawk is unique among helicopter parents due to their willingness to go to any lengths - legal or illegal - to give their offspring a positional advantage. Particularly lethal when elected to parent-teacher associations.
I have to laugh. Really? Is this a trend? Or is it being made one by repeated articles? In any case, there isn’t any data on the phenomenon as far as I can tell, just anecdotes, which are amusing as such.
Saw this posted on Fark–and they all had their own stories to tell. I have also seen horror stories on other sites. Apparently and unfortunately, this is a very real phenomenon.
Oh, I believe it’s real…I just don’t think it’s necessarily a new trend so much as a made up NYT trend. I can remember this going on when we were in school. Even so, I enjoy a good story.
I can certainly vouch for all of these. One of the reasons I no longer work as a high school teacher’s assistant is because of having to deal with the micro-managing parents. The kids weren’t nearly as bad as the parents.
Oh, I think the phenomenon exists. I just doubt it’s a new trend. It’s been a while since I taught high school, but even then I remember all sorts of parental pressure for grades and privileges….
*sigh* Another opinion piece passing as journalism in national newspapers. These “types” apply to parents of kids who are two years old. When the kids grow to be 20 - or even 30 - sometimes this type of interaction is all that’s left of the relationship they had with a parent.
Thank you for identifying what I couldn’t. It’s really opinion, and is in the same category as “types of women to date” in Men’s Health, which is to say it’s not objective reporting in any sense and the incidents are all anecdotal and not based around data or supported by anything other than an opinion.
My dad is a guidance counselor and says it seems to have worsened over the years. Not that that confirms or denies it as new. But I do get the sense it has gotten worse and more widespread. My partner is a professor and parents regularly email him about their college kids’ grades. Ugg.
I think if we had stats in the article from your dad or other counselors in which he recorded calls for parents in different categories (asking for tutoring for kids, asking for sit-downs with teachers, or pleading for additional time for assignments) over time and there was a discernible increase, it would make the article a lot stronger. Again, it’s not that I totally doubt it exists as a phenomenon since I remember it from teaching, and I’m willing to believe that Baby Boomer parents are more…uhm….active, it’s just the way the article (and a bunch of the NYT pieces lately) are written that really galls me.