"I'm not a helicopter parent, but......" in shiny things

I can not tell you how many mommies and daddies call me this time of year, and start off the conversation by telling me they are not helicopter parents.

"I'm really not a helicopter parent!!! I'm not!! I swear I'm not!!!!"

Are you calling me because your kid is in the hospital and can't make the call himself?

No?

Are you calling me because he is currently doing an internship in a remote and far-off country on the other side of the world, and has no email access??

No?????

You're calling because he's just so busy with exams and stuff and he reaaaalllly needs this letter from me saying he's graduating but he just doesn't have time to call me himself??? Or email me???!!!!??

Yeah. You kind of are. You are a helicopter parent.

I don't need to talk to you for fifteen minutes and let you explain to me how your kid has got a job interview Friday and he really really has to have a letter by 1:00 that day saying he's actually graduating so he can take it to the interview with him. I need to talk to your kid about this. There are things he has to do first. HIM. Not you, Helicopter Mommy.

Of course when I email your kid to let him know what he, HE needs to do in order for me to verify that he really will graduate, and he emails me back hours later (after you have called again) and all he tells me in his email is where to fax the letter that I can not fax until after he tells me everything ELSE he needs to tell me before I can fax him that letter-- everything I told him in my email that I need to know before I can fling any letters verifying anything for him at all anybody's way.... yeah. I can see the fruits of your helicopter parenting.

Good work! I expect you'll be going to the interview with him. I hear that's not unheard of these days.

I hate to sound like I am a million years old - although obviously I am - but when I was in college, back when dinosaurs ruled the earth, I was busy too. I had exams and I had papers to write and reading to do, and I had work-study jobs on campus the first couple of years and I worked in restaurants the last two years, and I even had a slight social life, pathetic though it was.

I can not imagine my parents calling the Dean's Office for something I should have been taking care of, just because I was busy. I would have been mortified, for one thing, and it also would have never in a million years occurred to them to do that.

Guess what! I'm still busy! I'm really really busy! I dare say I've got much more to do now than I did way back then, what with a full-time job and bills and stuff my dad needs me to do for him and a house to at least pretend to take care of and all the rest of the unending parade of annoying responsibilities that come with being a grown up. Yet I manage to get most of it done all by myself.

So now I'm quite glad my parents would have never taken over and done stuff for me while I was in college. I'm pleased they let me do it all myself --- and they also let me learn that if I didn't do important stuff, it wasn't likely to get done by anybody else, and there would be consequences. Generally unpleasant ones. Like failing a class, which, YES, I did! More than one, to be honest!! Because I didn't do stuff I was supposed to do! And once I got dropped from all my classes because I was too lazy to walk my tuition payment to campus and I mailed it from the local post office and it took a week to travel two miles, and my payment was late and my whole schedule got dropped. That was no fun (and honestly I still blame the awful local postal service) but I learned the result of being too lazy to deal with parking at the admin building or walking from my house to make a payment. If that happened today (and it wouldn't - everyone pays by card now) the parents would storm the post office first and then the cashiers office to demand they take the late payment anyhow. And they probably would, because EVERYONE IS AN ENABLER!!!!

I did really stupid things and my parents didn't bail me out and when the really stupid things resulted in unpleasant consequences, guess what?? I learned not to do really stupid things!!! At least not those particular really stupid things.

SIGH. Yes, it's that time of the year. And I am going to leave on a happy and non-whiny note, with an adorable picture of the unbearably gorgeous Pixie. My BFF Kim's new kitten.

Kim had to have her nearly-22-year-old cat put to sleep a few months ago, and did not feel at all ready for a new cat. Then Pixie just showed up - via a friend who had adopted her but couldn't keep her because her SIX older cats were disturbed by all the Kitten Madness. Pixie is not only gorgeous, but is the sweetest kitten ever -- we are all in loooooove! Kim's brought her up to visit twice and even Eddie and Cayce think she's cute-- Cayce, who I expected would be mean to her because she's a little jealous over rivals, sniffed noses with her a number of times. Eddie hissed at her but he's a delicate flower and was scared of her. They both hung out in the livingroom with us, unable to take their eyes off her. I will have to post more pictures later- for some reason I don't seem to have all of them loaded up on Flickr. Maybe my parents will do it for me!