the curse of the meddling parent

[Twiglett]

so tell me, is this you?

s'not me

but how do you know it's not you. are your dc at uni/got jobs yet?

Maybe I'll be a Black Hawk \ /

Amusing but doubt it is representative of lots of parents. I'm sure in the 'good old days' parents used their contacts to get their kids jobs or encouraged their children into careers - lots of biographies I've read featured this. Working class parents introducing kids to the shipyard or mine or whatever where they worked (often seen as plum jobs that were hard for outsiders to get into), middle class parents helping them into the same profession.

Nicholas Parsons's parents were upper-middle but arranged with an uncle to get him an engineering job because they thought he was thick! And didn't want him to go on the stage. Imagine Parsons in the Glasgow shipyards. They didn't realise Glasgow had theatres...

simple .. because I don't march into school to sort out every little detail of my 6 year old's life ... and I know parents who do

if I'm not doing it at 6, I'm hardly likely to do it at 18 am I?

(black hawk does sound rather mysterious though .. ponders)

railways too. Engine drivers were working-class aristocracy, lots of them got their sons jobs, although you had to start cleaning out steam engines and work your way up.

I agree with you, edam. Always happened, just perhaps more widespread now.

~0~
[oo]
I...I

(bodyguard)

when I went to university it was unheard of for a parent to actually be involved in the university education or milk rounds

of course there has always been nepotism .. but surely this is about something else ... I find it interesting the point about Gen Y children actually allowing their parents to interfere

It was a badge of honour not to even be driven down by parents but manage on the train/Nat Express bus with your worldy goods in an army and navy ruckesack and your telly strapped to your head.

edam ..good point, but the glasgow theatres used to strike fear into the heart of performers!
i would like to think nicholas could hold his own in the shipyards, humour goes long way anywhere
(i loved his desert island discs recently )
my dad (welder) always said he worked with men much much funnier than billy connnolly...

i read this article in paper yesterday, think its a bit wimpy really to have letters and contracts sent to your parents though, and companies going along with this...
it would make me think twice as to who amm i actually employing here..

sadly, although it exists in all stratas of society it must make social mobility much harder and stops people being able to do what they are best at...

i hate it actually...

Vixen, I went on the train but getting out of a taxi at the other end my bag split and a box of tampons rolled across the road.

oh pointy
black hawk down..

well in mogadishu anyway...

of course we will all help and do what we can but surely a sign that you have done your job properly is that they can be trusted to accept and negotiate job contract ON THEIR OWN as a young adult...????

Twiglett, I work for a university, and I think what has changed is that middle class Generation Y have no realistic hope of ever achieving independence from their parents.

Bright, able PhD students in their mid-twenties have their parents directly involved whenever they have problems. But the parents will often have "helped" their offspring buy a flat, keeping the student permanently indebted to them.

The alternative is to rent indefinitely, having work disrupted by moving house every 6 - 12 months and spending extraordinary amounts of time trying to negotiate with agents to get boilers etc repaired, and then to get deposits back.

I think in many ways we are reverting to Victorian times when the wealth of the family you were born into determined your opportunities in life and parents felt entitled to play a much more powerful role in their children's life.

Upwind, I think you're right. It's an awful indictment of our society, but that's the way we're heading. I thought DP and I struggled when we came out of university and got started in our careers, but when I look at our dcs, I can't begin to imagine how they will ever gain economic independence. How will they ever be able to buy a home? Or even buy and run a car? We really do seem to be heading back to the bad old days when if you have the luck to be born into a wealthy family, or are one of the few who lands an extremely highly paid job, you'll be ok. If not, tough luck. I would hate to be a teenager these days - it must be bloody awful trying to motivate yourself in these circumstances.

i was reading this yesterday. parents who get cc'd on job offers. it's crazy. how embarassing to have your mum and dad sticking their oar in with your first job offer, after graduating.

we're breeding a nation that will never grow up and they'll forever be little princess and princesses. actually meet quite a few parents that are like that now, when i think about it.

I am not in the slightest surprised by this. I have some involvement in graduate recruitment at the law firm I work at. You would be stunned at the number of parents who phone up or email wanting to know why we have not offered their child a job.

what do you say to them anchovy?

do you mention how inappropriate it is for them to be involved in their adult children's job seeking?

Southeastastra,

but there are an awful lot of parents who enjoy having the power to meddle in their offsprings' lives. Usually when house prices go up that is treated as "good news" - when it does not really benefit anyone except the tiny minority trading down or those who enjoy the wealth their equity gives them relative to those around them. When the cost of buying a home goes down, that is "bad news" even though it helps young people gain independence and allows young families live more comfortably for the same outlay.

Check out all the threads here about interfering in laws! I don't know if Generation Y will be more accepting or more resentful of such meddling, given greater dependence on their parents.

another article

it's completely bizarre to me that a parent would even think of calling to see why their child would be passed over for promotion.

An old colleague of mine recently rang his daughter's Cambridge college to explain why she had done less well than expected in her exams and to ask that she be allowed to resit to get a better mark
I thought he was a loon! Seems he might be about normal...
My parents did fuck-all to help me along but then I do not want to be a meteorologist or a neurotic.

hmm. I remember a girl my age (so back in prob '89) whose dad got in touch with her university to complain about her final degree classification and it was amended due to her illness. Fair enough, I s'pose. But this dad also cpntacted her elder sister's uni to complain about her classification too. No mitigating circumstances so I think they held firm.

I knew a guy at university whose father had opened a bank account for him, into which the father paid a monthly allowance - not so unusual, BUT all the bank statements went straight to the father!

AND another friend told me that this continuted for years after university, when this guy had moved to London and got a job - his father still opened and read all his bank statements!

wow ! i think i would crumple with shame if my parents had rang an employer to intervene on my behalf.. hopefully they have done enough of a good job bringing me up, so that i can fight my own corner

what runs through those parents; heads when they pick up the phone?
do they think that that will give the employers a better view of their child? that they need their parent to intercede on their behalf??

I too was pretty stunned by the article. Once I was 19 and at Uni, my parents played no further direct role in my career, though of course they expressed their opinions from time to time. It would never have occured to them (or me ) for them to intervene on my behalf. This seems rather demeaning for the young person. I think youngsters are much less independent these days though, I notice it with my own two, who seem to rather lack initiative. When they are older I can't see myself behaving in such an interventionist way though.

I read a really good book recently (by a US psychologist Madeline Levine) called The Price of Privilege after reading the review in the Observer.

To quote the article:

Levine criticises over-intrusive 'helicopter parents', so-called because they constantly hover over every aspect of their children's lives, for example going into their school to challenge a teacher about a mark their child has received. Although they are trying to help, they are actually damaging their offspring's development because, she says, leaving children alone, and learning how to handle difficult situations, helps them acquire independence, coping skills, a sense of right and wrong, and a sense of who they are.

I couldn't agree more. A lot of my big steps forward in personal and social development has come from awkward, uncomfortable, embarrassing and sometimes hostile and demeaning situations.

Oh the parents who will simply not believe that their child is not a genius. That they are misbehaving not because they are 'bored' but because they don't want to do any work!

[sigh]

Or that they have very, very nice hardworking kids who are just not going to make it as a vet or a medic because the lovely child is simply not that good at science.

[bigger sigh]