28. Taught a lesson
My wife being a teacher had to deal with helicopter parents on a regular basis.
One parent became so overbearing (demanding to see lesson plans, making my wife take class time to re-explain subjects), my wife deliberately left a quiz out to see if the parent would try to steal it.
This parent took the quiz and slipped her kid the answers. Knowing the kid was not a good student, my wife got the parent to confess to cheating.
This went to the principal, and he banned her from the class. The parent made multiple complaints, even going to a district meeting. The school board held up the ban.
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Get Started27. Police interview
A few years ago we were hiring for an entry-level help desk position. A nice kid came in with his mom. I very politely offered her something to drink and a place she could sit. She was NOT invited to the interview itself.
This lady started to get very aggressive about being in the room, and the poor kid was getting embarrassed. My final answer was that he was no longer being considered for the position, and she lost it.
Our receptionist called the police, and they were there within a minute. She calmed down a little when the police arrived, almost as if she had been through this before. They nicely escorted her off the property, and luckily we never heard from her again.
| Anonymous
26. Smothered by mother
My sister is a freshman in college, and her roommate has an absolute helicopter mom.
They're both on the cross-country team and very good students. My sister said the roommate never drinks or goes out, but her mom tracks her through phone GPS and will text her constantly asking why she's at such and such place.
My sister said she'll constantly have to send pictures of them at the library to her to prove they're actually studying.
I just don't get that kind of smothering of your kid. I mean, if you want to check up on what they're doing then fine ... especially if you're paying the bills, but dang, the poor girl can't even have a normal college experience.
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Learn More25. Might as well homeschool
The kid is about 9 years old — so like third grade. His mom is an acquaintance of mine.
She has forced herself into every activity and classroom that he's ever been in. She starts off volunteering in the classroom normally but, little by little, she shows up more often whether the teacher asked her to or not.
She basically spends every day, all day with him — never gives him any space. She hovers over everything he does and if it's not perfect she "fixes" it. Pretty sure she's done his homework herself several times. Sometimes the teachers will send home an art project, and his always looks like an adult did it alone.
| Anonymous
24. Thanks, moms
What do you do when your parents want to keep an eye on your every move?
A guy I know is 23. He has two moms. Adopted.
I'm not sure which mom is worse. One of them runs all his social-media accounts.
He has a cellphone that can only call his parents and 911. Not allowed to drive. Any time he goes somewhere new, his mom tags along for a few hours to "check things out." He's only allowed to eat at certain restaurants and has to check in with his moms constantly.
The worst part is that he doesn't see any issue with this. He is not an independent thinker. He relies on everyone else to make decisions for him.
| bondsman
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23. Dormestic disturbance
They do everything together. Too much, really.
I was going to move into a dorm with a friend, but her mother contacted administration and insisted that she be allowed to live on campus to make sure her daughter was doing her homework and staying away from alcohol.
22. Mother always frets
Music teacher here. I had a helicopter mom. She sat in with her son during the first lesson.
She was sitting right by him, shoulder to shoulder. As I was talking about various things like how to hold the guitar, she would grab his hand and do it for him. Every single time. For everything.
Time to strum some chords? Mom did that for him, too. Can’t get the fret hand to squeeze hard enough to make the strings ring? She pressed his fingers for him. He cried out at that, and that’s when I stopped and told her she had to let him do it on his own.
All I got for that was a sharp look and a “Fine then.”
21. Eyes in the sky
On patrol.
Some dad didn't want to walk his kid to the bus stop, so he bought a drone so that the drone could watch him walk to the bus stop.
THAT'S REAL HELICOPTER PARENTING.
20. Playing with fire
He said he wanted to be a fire man. I guess he took it literally.
I work as a caregiver at an after-school daycare program.
One day, a 9-year-old kid was showing everyone his lighter by trying to set the shirt he was wearing on fire.
I obviously took the lighter away from him. When his mother came to pick him up, I handed it to her and told her about him trying to set his shirt on fire.
Turns out it was her lighter. She said I had "no right" to confiscate it, and her son would never try to set his clothes on fire because "he's not a total dummy." Then she accused me of making the whole thing up.
| samaki14
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19. On the job
My mother came to an interview I was doing.
I was the person conducting the interview.
| Anonymous
18. Getting goosebumps
Worked at a summer camp, and we told scary stories.
One of the boys in the camp couldn't sleep because of some of the stories, so his mom demanded that scary stories be banned.
The next Monday the boy complained that we couldn't tell scary stories anymore.
17. Spy kids
I had a third-grade student whose mother felt that I favored other students over her son. She would call me and yell at me about not treating him fairly.
She’d come to spy on me and then tell the principal that she was trying to “catch me in the act." Of what?!
As a final straw, the mother bought a watch with a voice recorder in it, and the boy wore it to school. He yelled out in the middle of class suddenly, “I’m secretly recording you and you won’t teach here for much longer!” He's 8 years old!
Of course the watch was confiscated and the child was moved into a different classroom. But the mother still never backed down, and the next teacher had similar issues.
| daleene
16. Mother knows best
I was working summer orientation for my old community college, and we have new students register for classes towards the end of the session.
This one mom was literally hovering over her son telling him which classes to choose. She then proceeded to sit down and she herself started registering her son for his classes.
I tried to intervene, letting her know that we ask that the student register themselves and that he'll be doing online registration for the rest of his college career. I was told to buzz off.
Later I pulled him aside and told him to change his password and swap into a class more appropriate for his placement exams.
It was this incident that triggered us to design a parent orientation to keep them away from their kids.
15. She needs her lullabies
You're never too old to need to be tucked into bed. Just kidding, this is creepy.
This happened my first year of college. The parents who attended orientation were housed separately from the students.
One mom wanted to stay with her daughter and took the bed of another student. The mom told the student she can find somewhere else to sleep.
14. Making the grade
A mom came with her kid to whine about a (deserved) poor grade. The "kid" was a junior in college.
Mom was not happy when I informed her I couldn't and wouldn't talk to parents. And by "not happy," I mean "lost her marbles and had to be escorted out of the building by campus security."
The student was mortified, of course. He even came by to apologize, and I was basically like, "Let's both just pretend that this never happened, OK? Here's what you should work on for the next exam."
He gratefully obliged and he ended up doing just fine in the course.
13. Constant contact
My 20-year-old roommate has to be in contact with her mom every single day. If she doesn't answer within a few hours, her mom gets extremely anxious.
Her mom has called me more than once to see where she is. Usually, she's about 40 feet away from me, watching TV.
12. Crying over spoiled milk
My sister taught kindergarten for a while. She had a kid whose mother wouldn't let her play outside if it was below 70 degrees.
She told the school her daughter was allergic to dairy but then admitted she lied because she "couldn't trust that the school wouldn't serve her spoiled milk."
| bagzilla
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11. The gateway
I need to check my son into rehab. He's on something called ibuprofen.
First year of college. Was eating lunch in the mess hall when I overhear a conversation between a son and his mother.
She was upset that the residence was allegedly promoting substance use — by selling Tylenol in the student store.
10. Nature vs. nurture
I taught a 5-year-old whose mother came in to meet with us before he started to tell us that he had some developmental and social issues and needed a little extra attention.
He comes in, and we discover after a week or two that he is absolutely 100% fine developmentally, he's just HORRIBLY behaved and has never been disciplined.
He was a NIGHTMARE. He was rude, entitled and bratty, but he was perfectly fine once we explained to him what behavior was acceptable.
The mom was just a lazy parent. Instead of admitting that he was a brat, she chalked it up to disabilities. To sum it up: "There's no way that my child can be wrong, something must be wrong WITH him."
9. Peeping mom
My sister told me that her friend’s parents had placed cameras in her room. The camera was also equipped with a microphone to not only hear what was going on in her room but also to speak to the child.
My sister told stories after coming home about the mom calling in to the room to sometimes tell them to stop doing an activity or to be a little more quiet. This woman was watching their every move and listening to their every conversation!
I feel bad for the girl, honestly. To me that’s a huge invasion of privacy as well as extremely creepy in general.
8. Staying in her good books
I worked at a small community library. A kid lived in the building across the parking lot from the library.
He would leave his building, walk the 150-odd feet to the front door of the library, come to the desk and use the courtesy phone to call and report to his mom that he got to the library safely.
I remember the day that he didn't do this, she came flying into the library like five minutes later freaking out that her son had been kidnapped and we needed to find him.
That poor kid. I really wonder where he is now and if he ever was able to shake off his mother.
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7. Seconds from hot dog disaster
A 13-year-old kid lives down the street. The kid was never on his own for anything. Parents are always there.
The creepiest thing I saw them do? We had them to a party, and when he asked for a hot dog the mom freaked out because I served them whole! She took the hot dog from his hand and cut it for him in little baby bites (like I would do for my 1-year-old), then handed it back to him like she saved his life.
The dad then took him to the bathroom with a gallon of sanitizer and baby wipes and made "sure" the boy washed his hands.
| magsplus
6. Mom's the word
You listen here. You fire my son right now or we're gonna have a problem.
I had a 16-year-old coworker whose mother sat in on the interview and tried to answer all the questions for him. He quit a couple of months later. Actually, I should say, his mother called the store to quit for him.
5. Speak no evil
She's really shushing that baby.
An incredibly quiet student just flat-out refused to engage in any discussion in class. She was an extremely pleasant girl; she just wouldn't speak.
I brought it up with her mother during an interview, and she told me she'd forbidden her daughter to express her opinion. She was afraid teachers would disagree with her opinion and mark her down out of bias.
I assured her that expressing an opinion wouldn't get a student marked down in my class and that developing one is important to her learning. But she just said, "I'd rather she didn't."
That's one way to really mess a kid up.
4. Mom says, 'I object'
Now smile big and wide for the judge, honey.
Had a mother call me to find out why her son didn't get the job.
He's 40.
And an attorney.
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3. Threw away the key
I was 20 years old and still not allowed out of the house without my mom. I had to hold hands crossing the street. I never had a job, never learned to cook — all because I was, in her words, "going to live with her forever."
I got a boyfriend, even though I'd never been allowed to visit anyone's house. Ever. She asked to see his birth certificate to prove he was the age he said he was.
I told her I wanted to move out, and she freaked. Called police and told them I was mentally unstable, told them I wasn't ready for the outside world. The police believed her, and it took me a full year to actually escape.
I'm now 23 and slowly adjusting to the world, but it's hard. I have no social skills.
| terriere
2. Diaper distress
Really, mom?
I knew a mother who kept her 5-year-old daughter in diapers when they went out of the house because she didn't want her using public restrooms. Because the girl sitting in her own excrement was much better for her health, apparently.
| Anonymous
1. Party foul
Hello, 911? My son left four hours ago. Nothing's wrong, I just miss him.
A mother reported her son missing.
He's 18. He was last seen at a party at 5 p.m. She went onto his Facebook at 9 p.m. that night, saying that she filed a missing-persons report.
Dude came home to a post shared 600+ times and the police waiting for him.
| Anonymous
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