The worst part of our professorial job...

[debgeisler]

...is when a parent of a student calls us.

There are really only two reasons for parent to call: (1) something is very wrong with their son or daughter, and (2) they are helicoptering.

The first is clearly the absolute worst phone call we can get: a young man or woman is very ill or is badly hurt (or possibly in trouble and in jail), and their parents get the joy of calling us. These are hard, hard calls.

The second is the most annoying phone call we usually get. Son or daughter is letting mom or dad do their work for them. Or mom or dad are insisting on getting involved as advocate for offspring. These are helicopter parents, and they annoy the bloody bejesus out of us.

I had an annoying mommy call today. I nearly hung up on her.

So, if your son or daughter is headed for college, here is advice from me to you:

(1) Do not tell me "I pay his tuition bills." I don't care. The implication here is that you pay my salary. Bite me.
(2) Let your son or daughter fight their own battles. They are adults. Treat them like adults. Their employers won't want to hear from you, either.
(3) If I meet you during orientation week, that is the last time I want to hear from you until I tell you, at graduation, that your son or daughter was a great person to know.
(4) I will not tell you anything about your adult son or daughter's school records. There are even laws preventing me from doing so.
(5) In most cases, if your son or daughter would read what they are supposed to read, follow directions, and do what we tell them is needful, they wouldn't be in a mess to begin with.

Yes, I know you love your children. That's great. My job is all about your sons or daughters. It shouldn't be about you.

I do care about these men and women. And I hope you never, ever, ever have to call me with the *first* type of call.

Comments

[mmegaera.livejournal.com]

Once upon a time in my own misspent youth (in my 20s, pre-library school), I worked as the secretary to the director of undergraduate studies at the Indiana University school of music, one of the best in the country. If there's anything worse than a helicopter parent who speaks English, it's one who doesn't [wry g]. I spent an awful lot of time fending off both types, because obviously each little prima donna was not getting everything s/he deserved.

I lasted about a year in that job. Then my ex graduated and we moved away. Thank gawd.

[debgeisler.livejournal.com]

Yeah, if I had to deal with parents *of college students* on a regular basis, violence would be happening. (And I cannot imagine how K-12 teachers manage the increasing parental interference, either.)

[ann-totusek.livejournal.com]

I haven't called a single teacher since my daughter went away to school. I'm trying very hard to do good parenting, and to be a good parent as far as the teachers are concerned. When she calls, I don't interfere or intervene, I just give advice on strategies for solving whatever problem she has. I figure that I can, if I have to (gulp) pay for another semester or even year of college if something goes drastically academically wrong. I can't, however, be there the rest of her life, so trying to solve all her problems would be a disservice to her in the long run. Hopefully what I do will be enough for her to learn on her own without major incident. The one time I seriously considered going down to school with a baseball bat was when she was sexually harassed (inappropriate touching and propositions) by an instructor. But then I would have been in jail and unable to pay her college bill. As it turns out, her official report was the one that they needed to get the guy thrown out- the other girls had been too scared/intimidated/ashamed to be willing to make a formal complaint.

[debgeisler.livejournal.com]

See, in the case of the sexual harassment, if your daughter needed and wanted you to be her advocate, then I think of that as a special case. (And if it had been my daughter, I'd also have been tempted to spit on my hands, hoist the Jolly Roger, and start taking heads.)

But you let your daughter make her own decisions and mistakes - and that's important. The helicopter parents don't do that.