Work Daze

In my day, we didn’t really have a name for parents who obsessed about their children—the kind of Mom and Dad who were, to be alliterative about it, fanatically fixated on their kid’s progress in school, in camp, in Pop Warner Football, or, in my special case, the American Junior Miss Pageant.

But now we do have a name, and it’s one that I can use in a family newspaper. Obsessive Mommies and Daddies are “helicopter parents,” referring, I suppose, to the way they hover over their children’s lives, always ready to drop out of the sky and help junior with pre-school frustrations or post-school job hunting.

It’s true! The helicopter parent phenomena is no longer confined to beating the competitive market for elite nursery schools and Ivy League universities, but also occurs in the job market. Today’s chopper poppa and momma advise their spawn on job offers, negotiate salaries and perks, and, in some cases, actually come along on the job interview, the better to testify on junior’s unique merits and qualifications.

I first read about this extreme form of parenting in Sue Shellenbarger’s “Work & Family” column in The Wall Street Journal. According to the HR folks Sue interviewed, the lobbying from—and surprise guest appearances by—parents at job interviews has rocked the usually unflappable HR world.

“It’s unbelievable to me that a parent of a 22-year old is calling on their behalf,” the college relations director for St. Paul Travelers, Allison Keeton, told the columnist. Ms. Keeton has another name for the helicopter parents. She calls them “kamikaze parents—the ones that mowed down the guidance and admissions offices” and are now moving into the workplace.

Once a helicopter parent has browbeaten a hiring manager into offering their offspring a job, the air attack does not stop. “General Electric made an offer to one recruit last fall,” Shellenbarger reports, “only to get a call the next day from the recruit’s mother trying to negotiate an increase in pay.”

If this seems like unseemly behavior, consider that the candidate was probably living at home, cramping Mom and Dad’s lifestyle to the max. 11% of adults 25-34 still live with their parents, the Census Bureau reports, up from 8.7% in 1980. This phenomena is connected the paucity of jobs and the high cost of living, if you call still being at home at age 30 “living.” [I know it’s a source of humor for movies and sitcom’s, but believe me, it’s less of a laugh riot when it’s your kid who’s fouling your empty nest.]

While showing up at job interviews strikes me as a bit excessive, even for a helicopter parent, I do see a positive place for kamikaze parenting, and that’s in the work place. Call me unfeeling, but my sympathies are not with the 20-somethings just starting out in the world of work, but with the 30-.40-, 50- and even 60-somethings who are struggling to stay employed.

For those of us facing sniveling supervisors whose idea of solving problems in the workplace is to send our jobs to Bangladesh, you’ve got to love the idea of having Mommy and Daddy drop in to defend you. And your parents should feel comfortable with the idea, as well. After all, it’s exactly what they did when you were terrorized by bullies on the playground.

Why not bring your mother to the weekly staff meeting? If she’s in a wheel chair or walker, all the better. Have her bake a treat for the staff—Betty Crocker Marijuana Brownies are always a big hit. Tell her to feel free to interrupt the flow of the meeting if she has something to share, like a full report on the surgery to cure her perforated bladder. [No executive summaries, either. We want x-rays, blood samples—the entire CSI-experience.]

I’d save Dad for those tough meetings with the boss. Even the most hard-headed, number-crunching executive will melt like a Hershey Bar in the Sahara when Dad tells about changing your diapers. With any luck at all, Dad can take this occasion to change his own diapers, thus demonstrating the circle of life and sending your boss running for the showers.

I guess the only problem you might face is if Mom and Dad demand a share of your paycheck for saving your job. If this happens, be strong. You’re a mature adult, a successful wage earner, and if your parents do not respect this, you’ll simply have to move out of their house.