How Parents Are Robbing Their Children of Adulthood
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Nicole Eisenberg’s older son has wanted to be a star of the stage since he was a toddler, she said. He took voice, dance and drama lessons and attended the renowned Stagedoor Manor summer camp for half a dozen years, but she was anxious that might not be enough to get him into the best performing-arts programs.
So Ms. Eisenberg and others in Bloomfield Hills, Mich., the affluent suburb where she lives, helped him start acharitywith friends that raised more than $250,000 over four years.
College has been on their radar since her son was in diapers. “We’ve been working on this since he was 3 years old,” she said.To apply, she said, “I had to take him on 20 auditions for musical theater. But he did it with me. I don’t feel like I did this. I supported him in it. I did not helicopter parent him. I was a co-pilot.”
Or was she, perhaps, a … snowplow parent?
Helicopter parenting, the practice of hovering anxiously near one’s children, monitoring their every activity, is so 20th century. Some affluent mothers and fathers now are more like snowplows: machines chugging ahead, clearing any obstacles in their child’s path to success, so they don’t have to encounter failure, frustration or lost opportunities.
Taken to its criminal extreme, that means bribing SAT proctors and paying off college coaches to get children in to elite colleges — and then going to great lengths to make sure they never face the humiliation of knowing how they got there.
In its less outrageous — and wholly legal — form, snowplowing (also known as lawn-mowing and bulldozing ) has become the most brazen mode of parenting of the privileged children in the everyone-gets-a-trophy generation.
It starts early, when parents get on wait lists for elite preschools before their babies are born and try to make sure their toddlers are never compelled to do anything that mayfrustratethem. It gets more intense when school starts: running a forgotten assignment to school or calling a coach to request that their child make the team.
Later, it’s writing them an excuse if they procrastinate on schoolwork, paying a college counselor thousands of dollars to perfect their applications or calling their professors to argue about a grade.
A version of this article appears in print on March 17, 2019 , on Page ST 1 of the New York edition with the headline: The Unstoppable Snowplow Parent
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Here are the top 20 stressful scenarios reported by millennials:
1. Losing wallet/credit card
2. Arguing with partner
3. Commute/traffic delays
4. Losing phone
5. Arriving late to work
6. Slow WiFi
7. Phone battery dying
8. Forgetting passwords
9. Credit card fraud
10. Forgetting phone charger
11. Losing/misplacing keys
12. Paying bills
13. Job interviews
14. Phone screen breaking
15. Credit card bills
16. Check engine light coming on
17. School loan payments
18. Job security
19. Choosing what to wear
20. Washing dishes
In fact, the survey of 2,000 American millennials, commissioned by CBD oil company Endoca, reveals that one-third of millennials believe their lives are more stressful than the average person’s life.
The survey also pointed to numerous causes of the frustration for this young segment. Many feel their overall stress level is caused by the accumulation of daily micro-stressors — seemingly trivial experiences — such as being stuck in traffic, waiting for appointments, or various smartphone issues.
For example, although losing one’s wallet or credit card ranked as the top source of stress for respondents, 1 in 5 say they’d be even more apoplectic if their smartphone screen broke. For more than 2 in 5 millennials (41%), a damaged phone screen is worse than seeing their “check engine” light flash on in the car.
And all of this is the results of the Helicopter/snowplow parents. I feel sorry for the kids.
Hmmm. Since many millennials use their cell phones for everything, I found 13 of the 20 would be stressful for them, but not for me (an old fogey).
Interesting that #1 is losing credit cards. I guess they don't that the first thing to do when they've lost their credit cards is to call the companies and put a "hold" on the accounts? Cancel those cards and they'll send new ones - simple.
#16 - I've had 3 cars with that faulty "check engine light". After my mechanics verified that it was faulty and nothing was wrong, I've ignored it. Always passed inspection.
#19 - That's "stressful"?
#20 - That's "stressful"? Dawn and hot water or a dishwasher and dishwasher soap. How hard is that?
I'd be more stressed if my eyeglasses broke. The hell with my cell phone if I can't SEE the damn thing!