Helicopter Mom, Secretary Mom

See the 20/20 segment recently on the "helicopter mom"? Oh my.

In a nutshell, this mom, who has a full-time job of her own, tracks, manages, coordinates, and micro-manages all daily activities for her two sons who are college students. What does this include? Making lists and calendars for all assignments, tests, projects, etc.; writing up notes and outlines, with timelines for studying them; phone calls all through the day and evening giving reminders of what to do and when to do it; and, monitoring and summarizing their emails so they don't have to deal with them. Oh, and even better, she routinely drives a couple of hours each way to do their laundry and grocery shop for them!

Now, I see giving your college student help and assistance, or guidance, when it's really needed and appropriate, and in the context of the student doing the work and learning how to organize, plan, and manage his or her own time and tasks. But, in this case, it seems pretty clear that mom does the majority of the work. It's also clear that mom is basically a secretary, and a crutch. Even she, and her sons, stated as much in the segment.

I'm not exactly sure why she or her sons agreed to be part of this 20/20 segment, but the whole spin on the story was that mom thinks it's a brilliant idea. Of course, they may all view it in a different light now that they've seen themselves shining back from the television screen. One of the sons had a not-luvin'-this look on his face, if you look closely.

So, I wish them luck in truly learning to be independent and responsible without someone standing over them 24/7. For their sakes, I also hope that not every prospective employer and girlfriend out there sees the video of this!

See what I'm talking about - watch this clip at: http://ow.ly/oz54 .