Wow, this is the sort of thing that makes me really happy I decided never to be a parent.

My mom walked me to school the first day. It didn't even occur to my dad to go, although he was working 2nd shift at the time. She dropped me off in the section of the parking lot/playground I was supposed to be in and left me there. I wonder how I survived!

I mean, come on, there were like 60 first-graders all in the same boat. Oh, and when I was in Kindergarten, I was *gasp* expected to be able to walk out and find the bus that would take me home!

No wonder today's kids can't do a damn thing for themselves. Their parents are definitely not doing them any favors treating them like helpless little idiots. And newsflash - there is NOT a pedophile around every corner. Your kid is far more likely to be molested by someone he/she knows than a stranger. You're looking in the wrong places, people.

It's not every parent, though too many. I recently posted to Facebook asking someone to let their child walk to school with mine. I wrote: Come on, it's West L.A., not the West Bank. No luck. But girl, 9, just went to the park with a friend and without any adults for the first time. This afternoon she scootered two blocks by herself to another friend's house. Could not be more at ease with my faith in her or the world -- though, ok, I did tell her to scooter fast and to call me when she got there. But my biggest concern was that someone would report her/me to the police or child services.

When I was a kid my mother took me to the class room on the first day of school to ensure I reached the right one, then every day after that it was on me.

We've made a point of visiting a new school once with the child, before the school year started. This falls under "can you find and recognize your school building?" When they were younger (kindergarden age), we walked with them the first few days. All of the schools have had policies that specifically prohibit parents bringing their kids to school, because this is bad for the child. Now that our kids are high-school age, they both travel on public transportation, along with all of the other commuters.

This is, of course, not in the US but in Europe.

I have only run across one school here where most parents personally take their kids to school every day. This a private "international school" largely populated by Americans. It is also the only school I know of where they have the school office right by the main exit, specifically so that they can keep track of students entering and leaving the building.

My children are now at the high school level in normal public schools. They are expected to be responsible for themselves. If they miss a test without an excuse registered in advance, they fail. If they cut classes more than 2-3 times, they will be kicked out. If they start failing their classes (and teachers will happily fail students who deserve it), they will be kicked out.

Guess what: it works. Kids learn independence from a young age, starting with walking by themselves to school. By the time they are in high school, they know how to manage themselves and their time. They are independent, and have their lives under control. Meanwhile, the few problem kids are removed from the normal schools, and hence no longer disrupt the education of everyone else.

Did I read that right? Practice eating a sack lunch?? Holy god, people, have some faith in your fucking kids. Is there really a mother out there who doubts her child's intelligence to the point that putting food in a paper bag or lunchbox will create such an obstacle as to need a trial run? Dogs can get treats out of the Kong--I think a five year old can manage to pull a sandwich out of a damn lunch sack without falling to pieces.

Following the bus? No, I don't do that. But the other tips are all good ones. I guess she thinks every parent in the country is insane, since meet the teacher nights are standard a few days before school starts. Where the kids-gasp-meet their teacher, see the room, meet a few classmates. And the picture thing, I wouldn't do it, but those kids are training for a great successful career in the diplomatic corps.

I work a lunchroom shift at our school every week. There are a LOT of things parents pack that their kids can't open. Which makes for the need for people like me in that cafeteria.

I would never expect my kids to call me after scootering 2 blocks. They're 8.

Maybe in Texas, momof4, but here in CT meet the teacher nights are standard AFTER school has already started. Open house, it's called. The elementary schools have a little program the kids put on. The middle and high schools have you follow your kids' schedule, meeting all the teachers and getting a brief synopsis of each class. Not every parent attends every one, especially if they've got multiple kids in different schools. I remember dashing from the elementary school to the middle school for a couple of years until my girls were in high school. But I didn't feel the need to attend EVERY SINGLE one. If my girls were having a problem in a class, I heard from the teacher and attended a meeting arranged by said teacher. And no way in hell would I follow a bus, ferpetesakes! I hate being behind the on my way to work, never mind doing it deliberately. What kind of idiocy is that? "Practice eating a sack lunch"?? WHAT?? Seriously, is there ANY child that really needs to do that? These helicopter parents are WAY out of control.

Ok,ok, I followed the bus on my son's first day of kindergarten. He's 20 now and I have cut the apron strings, but he was my first and well... I really have no excuse. Don't worry though. By the time my daughter went, (my 3rd) she was lucky if I remembered the camera to take the bus stop picture. Actually she was lucky if I remembered to go meet her bus after school.

I did get involved in the PTA, class mom, and all of that for my kids. It wasn't about being overprotective as much as I felt being involved with their lives and education was important. I still do. There is nothing like the look on your kid's face when you're the mom who gets to bring in the cookie monster cupcakes that took you all night to create. Some great memories were made being involved.

Good for you momof4. But we live in a densely packed urban area with long city blocks, tons of traffic, lots of alleys, and one major street she had to cross. She was on her own. We all let go at our own pace, and different places often require different paces.

We are very lucky that our school -- a public school, no less! -- doesn't put with this garbage. Our kindergarten teacher, on the very first day, told us not to do this. We drop our kids off for the bus or we drop them off in the front from our cars. But we don't walk them to class or give them kisses or play snookums. There is a growing pushback in education sectors against helicopter parenting. I see it from the University perspective, where people are getting tired of students -- grown men and women -- who simply can not function on their own. Our U just instituted a new set of privacy standards ostensibly to protect student privacy on grades. But a pleasant side effect is that parents literally can not ask us about their kids unless it's been authorized in writing.

Yeah, yeah. First day of school is today, and the youngest is a ninth grader. In our county, kids can attend different specialty high schools, so while my wife carted middle daughter and another girl off to one high school, I did stand watch, sort of, while youngest daughter caught the bus to her school. Now, of course I didn't wait with her, but hung around the house (about half a block away) until the bus showed up.

If only these kids had gay parents...this wouldn't happen.

It's the traditional family model that is the problem.

http://www.salon.com/2012/09/04/gay_couples_have_happier_kids/

Sigh.

My kid's preschool handbook requests that parents limit drop-off times to ten minutes or less. So I guess that mommies who won't go home have been a problem before. (Baby A started in a new class today. She was fine; she knew her new teacher from the playground.)

I can see walking a kindergartener to class on the first day of school, but not after that. And I certainly wouldn't follow the bus... I don't have time for that.

...and I'll say it again:

Baby boomers were lousy parents.
Now their kids are parents.

Quotes FTA:

"Studies show that the traditional nuclear family is not better. It's a dying model -- and that's a good thing "

"If you want what’s best for your kids, one surefire way to provide them with a healthy, happy home is to make sure they have lesbian parents. "

"We know that the majority of Americans no longer feel that traditional gender roles are necessary, or even desirable."

"This isn’t to say that the traditional nuclear family is bad or that it’s completely dead—just that it’s not necessarily what’s best for children."

I would tend to agree that two loving parents are better than having a single parent - it's the putting down of the "traditional" family to idolize same-sex family when let's face it - the majority of these "family models" haven't really stood the test of time yet.

Hubris.

Read that article and tell me your take away wasnt: "Traditional families are so yesterday, lesbian families are better for children" (see the second quote posted if you don't believe me).

I work a lunchroom shift at our school every week. There are a LOT of things parents pack that their kids can't open.

Like What???

I guess she thinks every parent in the country is insane, since meet the teacher nights are standard a few days before school starts.

In my school district on the last day of middle school the 'graduating' class was taken to the highschool and given an hour to wander around.

I swam, and my local HS didnt have a pool so I went to HS in the next town over. I showed up for the first day of school with out a single fucking clue about where anything was. I looked at a map in the office for 5 minutes and figured it out for myself

Noted.

And as far as these over coddling parents concerned, they are teaching their children (through example) to FEAR everything in the world.

One of the most life crippling things a parent can do, and IMHO, arguably even more so then outright neglect or physical abuse.

Experience tells me this.

My old elementary school has gone insane. My mom was considering watching the neighbor boy for an hour or two before school because of his mom's work schedule. She ultimately refused upon finding out some of the idiotic rules the school now has. If he were to take the bus she was required to stand and wait outside with him. If she were to drop him off she was required to get out of the car and walk him to his classroom. When kids are picked up from school a teacher or aide has to walk them to the car. If they take the bus home they won't let you off unless the parent is there waiting. If you fail to do these things they report you to the police and CPS for neglect. Oh, and did I mention the boy in question that is still expected to be escorted to the classroom was in fifth grade?! pretty sad that we can't expect 10 and 11-year-olds to find their own way after being dropped off in front of the building.

My old elementary school has gone insane. My mom was considering watching the neighbor boy for an hour or two before school because of his mom's work schedule. She ultimately refused upon finding out some of the idiotic rules the school now has. If he were to take the bus she was required to stand and wait outside with him. If she were to drop him off she was required to get out of the car and walk him to his classroom. When kids are picked up from school a teacher or aide has to walk them to the car. If they take the bus home they won't let you off unless the parent is there waiting. If you fail to do these things they report you to the police and CPS for neglect. Oh, and did I mention the boy in question that is still expected to be escorted to the classroom was in fifth grade?! pretty sad that we can't expect 10 and 11-year-olds to find their own way after being dropped off in front of the building.

... for a mental health evaluation for the parent?

Why do you and Jessica Valenti use the gender neutral word "parent" when it is clearly mothers who are up to this stuff.

Dad's can perhaps be blamed for a lot, but leave us out of this.

I don't think touring the school in advance is that nutso. My elementary school encouraged families to come in within the three days before school started. Teachers would be there setting up the rooms anyway, and it was a chance to show up, chat, meet some other kids, have a look around.

It was very casual. Not at all structured. And it taught me some good habits -- scouting out the location of my college classes, scouting out the location of a job interview, making the commute a few days before a new job starts to avoid surprises the day of.

But asking for photos of classmates? I know a few teachers and if they were asked to provide photos of the whole class to some crazy parent amid the end-of-summer scramble, they would laugh and laugh and laugh. Also, don't follow the dang bus. Just don't. Your kids is humiliated, and his classmates are making fun of him.

1) capri suns 2) all sorts of warm food thermos containers screwed on too tight for them to loosen 3) goldfish sandwich bread in individually sealed packages-it's a pain to tear even for me 4) gogurts 5) cardboard milk boxes....I can continue.

Ok, so every place I've ever lived and had interaction with the schools, there was Meet The Teacher Night before school started, then back to School Night aka Open House, which is preferred parents only as it's info for parents, not kids, a few weeks or so after.

If there are places in this country this doesn't happen, ok. But I rather doubt any of you would ever start a job without having even so much as walked through the place before, so why expect it of kids? I don't find that crazy or overprotective. My first year of college, or any time I had a class somewhere I hadn't had one before, I'd find it before the first day. Otherwise, you're the asshat walking in late. Not crazy.

Lenore likes to find some really absurd examples to support her conclusions. It makes me not care for her.

Um, because moms are parents.

Why do you see a conspiracy theory against men at every turn?

Because I don't; rather, the point was about language. The fetish for neutering English has reached such proportions that writers toss in "parent" when the content of the article itself is clearly about mothers as a specific type of parent who are quite different from the other specific type of parent, dads. It's not just you and Ms. Valenti, it is the writers at Slate's XX, and the New York Times, etc. They are all clearly talking about mothers, and mothers sensitivity to impressions of other mothers. And then they use the word "parenting".

So, yes, there are undoubtedly helicopter dads. Two, maybe three. And, yes, there are more stay-at-home dads. But I'll bet all of them have a masculine style of parenting completely alien to this story.

Parents are not interchangeable, non-specific, gender-neutral units, no matter how much feminism requires they be that way.

(Also, the second reason for neutering that which is distinctly feminine is, IMHO, a subconscious desire to legitimize uniquely female acts by associating them, no matter how speciously, with men.)

Does it miss Alkon?

What is the number of children under 12 in the United States:

XXXX

Now out of that number, how many are in single parent homes:

XXXX

Now out of that number, how many of them are mother custody:

XXXX

Now of the former number, that of children under 12 in the United States that are NOT in single parent homes with mother custody, how many have a stay at home mother?/Stay at home father:

XXXX / XXXX

Now take the end results from both sets of questions, and compare the ratio of spurious complaints from parental units mother, and father between one another.

And I do not doubt that you'll find that Jeff is likely correct.

There is the reason the over protective mother hen is a feminine stereotype and not a masculine one. If you have doubt, then view a few parenting blogs and read all the stuff by crazy mothers.

I'm sure you'll find a few crazy fathers there too.

But you can't address the problem if you ignore the specifics for generic terminology.

You yourself Miss Alkon, have pointed out how large the number of single mothers are in this country, and what a problem it presents. Do you think it mere coincidence that helicopter parenting has grown out of control, when fathers are removed from the picture in great numbers?

One needn't be a statistician to recognize the obvious, or a conspiracy theorist to point out the obvious.

Is the language deliberatelly gender nuetral? Sometimes probably not. But also sometimes probably yes, its quite common to speak of "parents" in a generic nuetral term, but there is also a subset of people who go out of their way to avoid saying anything bad at all about women or about mothers, and one way that such people do that is by resorting to nuetral terms, as if it were a problem shared by both sexes, when the numbers make it patently obvious that it is pretty lopsided.

Though frankly to me the "who" matters a lot less than the "what".

Quite frankly its been my observation that most helicopter mothers are SAHM still married to the father.

Most single mothers dont have the time to be helicopter parents which is why their kids wind up as asocial delinquents on average rather than narsiscistic assholes, while not yet criminal in and of itself is still fucking annoying

"...ask your child's teacher for photos of the kids who will be in the class. "Then cut out and laminate each picture..."

I'm gonna go give this advice to all the single dads I know. What could go wrong?

I'm at a loss for words...and very, very sad!