Complaining parents - When did this trend start?

I should add that this is the same generation where some parents try to micromanage their kids' university experience.

I read a story a year or so ago about parents calling university professors to complain about their kids' marks or showing up at classes to take notes when their kid was sick.

Lord help us.

I'm so glad my kids are 1200 miles away at university.

(Oh, and don't get me wrong. I miss them like hell and I will be at their homecoming game)

 

Helicopter Parenting is the catch phrase. Because they hover. There's a cell phone commercial out now parodying it: "Of course we had to move onto campus in the RV. What if our daughter needs us!"

My 26-yr-old brother put it best when he said "I wish our parents would get a hobby ... besides us."

 

My uncle is a college professor. He can verify ... parents calling to complain about grades, calling to rip into him for one reason or another, et al.

Next thing you know, we'll see parents going on job interviews (uh, I think we've already hit that bridge).

 

Classic.

Buy your brother a beer on us.

 

Ugh. Scrapbookers are like the neoconservatives of the shitty parent movement.

Utterly uninterested in reality as they might find it, completely baffled that you don't share the (not really) reality they've created in their own minds.

 

I think I've mentioned this before but a guy I knew (straight as an arrow Super WASP) just threw this out one night at a cocktail party: "The difference between us and our parents is that they basically didn't give a shit about us"

No malice intended but our parents, who grew up during the depression & WW2 figured a roof over our head, three meals a day and encouragement to get a university education was their job.


It was our responsibility to get the grades and if we felt like it, play hockey, football and shit.

But at the same time my parents had several rules. One was, you didn't go out on school nights unless it was a sports or school event. We didn't get to go to visit friends or go hang out. Weekday nights were for homework and studying.

This wasn't even debatable. It was like a law of the universe.

 

Since I've been in the biz, there have always been jerky parents. Dealt with my first episode of Little League parent syndrome about 35 years ago. They really get going when you are picking all-area teams. I've had moms march down making demands after the team has been picked. I've had phone calls at home. I've had a dad threaten a lawsuit. Even had a dad going to the city manager's office to try to get him to exert influence because he was golfing buddies with the editor.

 

But hoops, do you think it's increased over the years?

 

When Grog's son didn't rate a mention on the cave painting of the big wolly mammoth kill. You know, he chucked a spear, too.

 

Get some perspective, please.This didn't start with baby boomers. It's been going on since kids started playing organized sports. And it will never end.

 

I'm sure it's been going on forever. But for a lot of people, it seems as though the numbers of calls and complaints have gradually increased over the years.

The problem is not that it will never end, but that it will continue to grow as it has over the last generation.

 

Because more kids are playing.