Soccer mothers/ helicopter parents rant

**nomoresoccermoms** · June 20th, 2011, 10:29 PM

I'm not sure this is the right place to put this, but it's kind of related to pageant mothers. I just have a rant about helicopter parents/"soccer moms" in general.

I have a friend who lives in a very affluent suburban neighborhood and she absolutely refuses to allow her 11-year old son to ride the school bus (the stop is about five houses down the street). She sits in the damn car pool lane for an hour in the morning and an hour in the afternoon every day so she can watch junior enter and come out of the school building.

She has no job as hubby works and pays the bills, so the majority of her days are spent "volunteering" at the school. She is always complaining to the teachers about other kids in the class, the teachers themselves, and even tried to get some rowdy little girl kicked out of her daughter's class because she pushed her on the playground one day.

The 11 year old boy can't bike up and down the street by himself, he must always have his mother join him. Mind you, this is a very nice neighborhood with hardly any traffic and it is a dead end street.

No movies over PG for the 11 year old or the 9 year old girl either. No exceptions. They are only allowed to watch old Leave It To Beaver and Gomer Pyle episodes on television. Only "educational" video games, no internet usage just for fun. The only other playtime they have is in the four or five organized sports their mother makes them participate in. She has the soccer ball decals on the back of her minivan and everything.

The children spend their summer days in organized "club" or school events, no random playing. The boy spends every day at La Cross camp and the girl takes ballet and violin lessons. Then it is time for science/math lessons in the evenings. All summer.

I just thank God our mother let us actually, you know, be kids when we were their age. Not everything was so sugar coated, controlled, and we didn't live in a bubble like kids do now. We also weren't over scheduled like they are now.

I remember we played outside all summer when we were kids (unsupervised!) and didn't come in until dinner. No organized activities like nowadays, kids just played, and were more free and happy. I dunno, seems like many youngsters are missing out on a lot because of fearful suburbanite parents. What started all this crap anyway??

End rant..

**Grimmlok** · June 20th, 2011, 10:48 PM

Agreed. What these idiot "parents" don't understand is that they're stunting the development of their children. They will never be fully formed adults, will have serious problems growing up leading to breakdowns later in their "adult" life when they can't function.

A friend's brother is like that, he was helicoptered and mothered all his life and now he's a right mess. Can't barely take care of himself. 27 years old and had to move back in with his parents.

Scary.