Dear Readers,
Have we as parents, as a society lost our collective minds?
Do we really think acting inappropriately is a parental right?
What the sweet Jesus have we created? I believe everything we are seeing today is a direct result of decisions and actions that have been in the making for the last twenty to twenty-five years and they are all coming to bloom. We are seeing the collective harvest of, if you get away with something…it wasn’t wrong!
…Oh yes it was wrong then and it is wrong now but we are all getting caught up in the collective bad and greedy behavior of our collective society!
Please keep reading…
Sometimes parents just don’t know when to let go, but it’s rare when a judge needs to intervene.
That was the case for Aubrey Ireland, a 21-year-old music theater major at College-Conservatory of Music at the University of Cincinnati. She convinced a judge to grant her a restraining order against her parents, David and Julie Ireland.
According to the Cincinnati Enquirer, Ireland told the court that despite making the dean’s list, her parents would routinely drive 600 miles from Kansas to Ohio to make unannounced visits to her at school. Then they accused her of illegal drug use, promiscuity and mental illness.
Her parents allegedly became so overbearing that they installed keylogging software on her computer and cell phone to keep track of her every move.
She told the court, “I was a dog with a collar on.”
According to the Cincinnati Enquirer, the school hired security guards to keep them out of their daughter’s performances in school productions. When she cut off all contact with them, her parents responded by stopping payment on tuition checks.
Both the school and the court have sided with Aubrey. The University of Cincinnati gave her a full scholarship for her senior year, and the judge issued a civil stalking order against her parents, ordering them to stay at least 500 feet away from her and have no contact with her until September 2013.
Helicopter parents are nothing new. They ignore boundaries or simply embarrass their adult children once they’ve left for college — or worse — in the workplace. Few cases are so extreme as Ireland’s.
In June 2012, researchers at the College of Business and Economics at West Virginia University conducted a study of 340 students and found that many simply grow accustomed to parents’ constant involvement. Nearly seven out of 10 students said it was “somewhat” or “very appropriate” to receive help from their parents in writing a resume or a cover letter. One-fifth of students thought it was fine to have their parents contact a prospective employer.
Asklotta and staff will MIND YOUR BUSINESS today staying mindful and out of my children’s private lives!
Again, it has been my pleasure to tell you what to do and what NOT to do!
Kindest regards,
Asklotta
President and CEO
CBCorp
asklotta 
Thanks for highlighting this crazy story! Wow.
So many people (parents) are spinning out of control…you have to feel sorry for them!
I think that a lot of parents feel that they have invested so much time and money in their child that they feel that active parenting does not end at 18. They feel that they have the right to continue to guide the kid because of the investment that they have made.
You could be very right.
Hi Lotta —
Thanks for making me think this morning! I love your blog!
This is a tough one. Part of me feels for the parents here. There are so many entitlement issues these days with kids, dean’s list or not. Society seems to think that being on the dean’s list is an indication that a student is problem-free. Not always so!!! There are lots of dean’s list, manipulative, drug-abusing, mentally ill kids out there. They don’t like their freedom, fun, and sex lives interrupted by worried parents, rules, or concerns. Parents can go too far, but kids can also go too far in their exaggerations and/or manipulations to get their own way. We don’t know the whole story. But here’s a solution: give the kid a kick in the ass and send the parents to counseling.
But overall, the Cincinnati Enquirer sure got what they wanted — conflict that made for effective entertainment that sells more papers, however they chose to spin it. Who knows the real story here?
XO Liz T.
What hit me as odd that the girl thought there was something wrong with the parents threatening to stop paying her college education. She could have easily have said…great, I will pay my own tuition for my freedom. But instead she went to the courts. My question, I wonder if the courts mandated the parents to still pay for college?
The birth mother (I can no longer bring myself to call “mom”), of the children we’re caring for is the same way. But she never acts out of love or compassion. In every instance it’s just to maintain ownership. And for all her “concerns,” she’s the root of their problems.
Sometimes life is a journey, other times a battle I suppose, right?
T – As always you nailed it. Do you think alcoholism is part of this crazy story? It involves not just one crazy mother but a father as well….
I am new here (found my way via your comment on Bipolarmuse’s blog) and not a parent. But I am appalled at the story of the parents who virtually stalked their daughter.
Initially I felt this must be an American trait but I recall similar stories of parents from the Indian sub-continent doing the same.
As a Brit, I actually faced the reverse attitude. When I got into Oxford (University) my father’s sole reaction over the breakfast table was to lower his newspaper a few inches and mutter, “I expected nothing less.”
Subject closed………………
Dysfunctionality comes in all shapes and sizes !
Hi Jane, I am a parent to 7 kids (3 from me, 4 step-children) what I have discovered and given much thought and pains about is God did not give any child the perfect parents. Basically past the age of six we all have baggage and life is about figuring out how to live in this world with love, compassion and a healthy sense of boundaries. Like everything else parenting is a process not an event.
Parents now seem to think they are responsible for making and keeping their children happy….They are not. Your father’s comment was actually a huge compliment to you. He thought of you as brilliant, tenacious with a will to succeed….Your admissions to Oxford was not a surprise to someone who thought so highly of you! Your father actually gave you permission to have your own life…these poor over protected children would/should trade places with you!
Always love hearing from the UK! Thanks for commenting!