Helicopter parents could learn from their trad moms and dads
Helicopter parents are getting worse.
The Wall Street Journal reports that a growing number of Gen Z parents are actively intervening in their children’s job searches, interviews, hiring processes and even early career issues.
According to the Journal, parents are calling companies about their adult children’s performance reviews, benefits choices and even calling in sick for them.
According to one survey, 20% of Zoomers had a parent attend a job interview with them.
One staffing executive had to fire a 24-year-old twice — once to the employee, who failed to show up for meetings four times, and again to his irate mother who demanded her son be given another chance.
Needed: Trad parent wisdom
Ironically, the parents who are hovering over their children now grew up two or three decades ago under trad parents who raised them in an opposite manner.
Not only did our trad parents not obsess over us, they made us go outside to play and not come home until supper, and we knew we had better not be late.
We were free to roam, invent and discover on our own. We learned how to socialize, make friends and deal with some of the jerkier kids without a parent anywhere to be found.
True, families were bigger back then and there was always an older sibling around to help us get out of scrapes.
When a big bully busted up my hand-built go-kart, my big sister kicked the tar out of him — he was two years older and 70 pounds heavier than she, but I will never forget the image of her sitting on his back, pounding her fists into his sides as he cried like a baby.
Trad parents didn't give us unwarranted praise. Rather, our parents specialized in admonishing us for the millions of things we were doing wrong — not getting to school on time, not getting high enough grades, not keeping our beds made.
In fact, if we were ever accused of any wrongdoing by other adults, our parents sided instantly with the accusers.
“What did you do now, Tommy?”
We had to prove, beyond any reasonable doubt, that we were not at fault — though, truth be told, we usually were at fault.
Adults must figure life out on their own
When my parents dropped me off at college, they didn't worry about the life challenges that awaited me. They could barely contain their glee that I wouldn't be eating everything in their refrigerator or racking up auto repairs on our Ford Pinto with Jim Rockford maneuvers (don't ask).
They gave me a big jar of peanut butter and some crackers and advised me there was no point in writing home for money — as there wasn't any.
I admit my blue-collar father did intervene in my studies. Worried I would never find a job as an English major, he insisted I minor in something practical.
Thanks to his meddling, I became the only person to ever graduate from Penn State with a major in English and a minor in air-conditioning and heating.
In any event, our trad parents knew that the process of becoming a well-functioning adult required us to figure most things out on our own.
Looking back, that is the greatest gift they gave us.
End helicopter parenting before it’s too late
As I said, it’s ironic that so many of today's parents, who enjoyed a trad-parent upbringing, are suffocating their kids’ development by endlessly meddling in their affairs.
It has gotten so bad, reports the Journal, that employers increasingly view heavy parental involvement as a red flag — a signal that Zoomers with especially meddlesome parents likely lack independence and the ability to make their own decisions.
I sure hope these kids figure out how to function on their own before their turn comes to run the country.
Or one day, during a live White House press conference, the President will be asked a tough question and his mother will grab the microphone.
“I don’t appreciate the tone of these questions!” his mom might say. “And for the record, it’s not his fault he was late to the NATO summit — the traffic was terrible and his alarm didn’t go off!”
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Copyright 2026 Tom Purcell, distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.
See Tom Purcell’s syndicated column, humor books and funny videos featuring his dog, Thurber, at TomPurcell.com. Email him at Tom@TomPurcell.com.
Copyright 2026 Tom Purcell, All Rights Reserved. Credit: Cagle.com
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