Giving Up on Letting Go
By Andrea Jarrell
A reexamination of the parent-student-campus connection
On campus, in the press, and in society at large, parents often are blamed for not letting go of their children, for being too pushy and overinvolved. But contrary to popular belief, kids don't want their parents to let go, and the "helicopter parent" phenomenon may be related to changing notions of adulthood. College is no longer considered the threshold to adulthood, researchers say. This article traces the historical and societal changes in the way parents relate to their college-age children and their institutions, from in loco parentis to the passage of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act in the early 1970s to recent challenges to FERPA. It also examines the emotional and financial drivers behind helicopter parents.
Overprogrammed. Overgroomed. Overinvolved. These are just some of the words college and university administrators use to describe today's students. Many administrators blame parents who, they say, are pushy and refuse to disengage. There's practically a new lexicon to describe today's Baby Boomer parents: MBA mothers who "mommy-tracked" to become "soccer moms" and focus on their "trophy children." Don't these "helicopter parents" know when it's time to let go?
Although the existence of these hovering parents is well-documented by now, what often surprises administrators most is the fact that Millennial sons and daughters don't want their parents to let go. At a recent Cornell University parent orientation session, held while the new freshmen were having their first meetings with advisers, cell phones rang throughout the room as the students called their parents for advice about classes.
In a relationship-oriented business like advancement, it's imperative to understand the nuances of relationships with and among constituents. The parent-student-campus connection is one of the most important—and one of the toughest to decipher. Luckily there's an ever-growing body of knowledge to help advancement officers manage these relationships in ways that benefit the campus and everyone involved.
Late onset adulthood
At first glance, it would seem that the continued mollycoddling of children into their college years—with their consent—is a sign of bad parenting. But perhaps parents and children can't let go because it just isn't time yet.
The conventional wisdom that college is the threshold to adulthood doesn't necessarily hold true anymore. In a MacArthur Foundation-funded project, the Network on Transitions to Adulthood and Public Policy, researchers found that although many people still believe that the transition to adulthood happens in a person's late teens and early 20s, adulthood actually happens much later.
Christine Schelhas-Miller, who teaches adolescent development at Cornell, says there are two developmental aspects to consider in the transition to adulthood. One is the abruptness or gradualness of the transition. In our culture, she says, adolescents do not grow up working alongside adults, learning the adult roles slowly over time as they would in an agrarian culture. They are thrust from the role of student to worker, sometimes never having experienced the field in which they get their first job.
The other aspect is clarity about when adulthood begins. "Adulthood is a cultural determination, and our culture hasn't defined it clearly, especially for 18- to 21-year-olds," she says. "There is incredible ambiguity around those years. When we need a military force, we call an 18-year-old an adult. When we worry that an 18-year-old will drink and drive and kill someone, we change the drinking age to 21. In our culture, adolescents get different adult rights and responsibilities at different times."
CONTINUED: According to the Network's work
