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• Monday, December 5, 2005 10:29 PM

  Letting your life revolve around your child is to set your child up for a fall

  I am very annoyed when eloquence about what you just know is right is never backed up with any real information. I teach at a fairly expensive private college, and we all work every day with the offspring of those whose parents felt that their lives should revolve around the children. (We call the parents "helicopter parents" because they hover STILL when the kids are at college). The students are good kids, but they often are shocked that I don't care what their opinions are about the hypothetical relationship between autism and vaccinations; I want them to interpret factual information about studies on the topic. Once we expected that students would work at finding out what we expect of them in terms of writing, reading or academic integrity; now there is an expectation by many students that we are supposed to spoon-feed them all information that is important; else it's unreasonable for us to think they'll seek it out.

  There is a level of mental illnesses and psychotropic medications at colleges -not just mine- that would be unbelievable except to someone in the medical field or in a college setting, which doesn't seem in keeping with the idea that staying home with your kids makes everything rosy.

  I am not personally attacking students. I love my students and they're fairly fond of me. I want to be clear that letting a child think that the parents are totally focused on him/her and that they control the family universe is setting them up for a difficult time when they leave the family. If a person (male or female) likes the idea of staying at home or for undisputable reasons must do so (for a severely disabled child, perhaps), that's fine and dandy. I work because we need the money but also because psychologically I am not cut out for staying at home and I damn well know it, and because the sacrifices we make for our kids are just not going to include my organizing every aspect of my life around them.

  Of course, my husband and I have declared our home a martyr-free zone.

  -psycprof

  —psycprof Read psycprof's other letters
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