It’s a parent’s job to look after and safeguard their children. However, sometimes being a protective parent morphs into something worse—a helicopter parent! Constant hovering can lead to frustration, broken relationships, and kids who can’t even do the simplest task. Keep reading to hear some stories from people who lived with helicopter parents that will leave one realizing that letting go of the reigns maybe isn’t such a bad thing.
1. All Work No Play
I had a second cousin the same age as me who had helicopter parents. All they would tell him was, "You need to focus on school/your career. Girls are a distraction that will keep you working at McDonald's the rest of your life so you can buy fancy cars and jewelry". It backfired so painfully. When we turned 30, he had never been on a serious date, and his parents started worrying.
When we turned 40, his parents started panicking. Staying away from females through all his developmental years made it nearly impossible for him to relate to them in a romantic way. He had associates and colleagues who were women, but he treated them like guys. He didn’t really know what to do. He tried to date but found it just made him anxious and decided it was easier not to try. If I could go back in time to when we were twelve, I would smack his mother upside the head.
2. Listen Up, We’re Done!
I had a helicopter mom. She was weird in that although she wanted to know all of my business and asked me endless questions about my life throughout my life, she never listened to or digested any of the information I told her. My mother watched a lot of Oprah when she was a stay-at-home mom. That show made my home life a nightmare. There were a lot of stories about children being abducted, talking to strangers, or trafficked. My mother then accused me of doing these things when I got home from school.
She had a million questions for me to satisfy her interrogation. Initially, I thought she was honestly concerned for me. It wasn't until I got older that this seemed weird because she didn't actually discover whether I was doing any of these things or not. She just asked me many questions and then moved on to whatever was next on TV.
Through these and other interrogations about useless/irrelevant worries of hers, I learned to lie very well. When I had real problems that I should have been able to tell her about, I found it easier just to lie. It got even worse as I got older. I once lied to her about being at a bar when I was 23. I said I was there with friends watching a football game when I was on a date and didn't check my phone while on the date.
At 11 PM, I checked my phone and responded to her texts, saying I would be home after the game at around midnight. She didn't like that response and told me to come home immediately, which I ignored. On the drive home from the bar at around 11:45 PM, I saw her car drive past me. My mother drove to the bar with the intention of bursting in, grabbing her 23-year-old son, and taking him home.
When she realized I wasn't there, she came home and started yelling at me for not coming back sooner. This led to an argument where I once again realized she wasn't listening to me. She was just mad I hadn't listened to her. Although she never followed me to school or college, she picked out my classes and decided my career field. Her behavior resulted in my no longer having a mother-son relationship with her.
3. Out Of Control
A kid I graduated with had a total helicopter mom. She was at school almost every day of his junior and senior years. She filled out all of his college and scholarship applications for him, including telling him what to write on the essays. She chose his school and everything. The fallout was hard to watch. The kid ended up having a complete mental breakdown post-college.
He sunk into a deep depression and had to be put into in-patient therapy for a while. His mother treated him like he didn't even exist. She just completely controlled his every move.
4. At Her Beck And Call
My mother-in-law was both a helicopter parent and a narcissist, which made for a really awesome combination. To this day, she still calls my wife at least three times a day every day. If my wife doesn't call her enough, my mother-in-law will call her and yell at her about it. Years ago, before every cell plan became an unlimited voice, I had to get a landline for the house since we kept going over our minutes from my wife talking to her mom on the phone.
It drove me absolutely crazy. When we were dating, her mom would call her when we were on dates and tell her what a tramp she was and what an ungrateful person she was. She also called the middle school where my 35-year-old brother-in-law was subbing to tell the principal to stop picking on her precious little snowflake.
5. Time To Break The Mold
My mother never let me out of her sight growing up. I wasn't able to go out without a parent being with me. Every bit of schoolwork was heavily scrutinized. My meals, weight, and appearance were also carefully curated. I couldn’t remember when I was allowed out with another relative. I think they were trying to mold me into a picture-perfect housewife.
The summer before I was going off to college, my mom made a list of things, like when I had to be in bed, how much I could use my cell phone, etc. I'd finally had enough. I just laughed in her face. She actually struggled to believe that nobody at the school would help her keep tabs on me. At that moment, I decided to join the Armed Forces, get away from financial dependence, and cut them off.
6. Lonely Way Out
I wasn't allowed to go to parties, and the friends I made ended up becoming friends I wasn't allowed to see for one reason or another. I spent a lot of time in my room, read a lot and made tiny robots. Then I found more sinister ways to pass the time. I started extracting codeine from over-the-counter tablets to deal with the crippling loneliness.
When my parents caught me, I moved out. I had no social skills and was taken advantage of a lot.
7. School Daze
My mom worked at every school I attended until I went to college. In preschool-K, she was a teacher, then started teaching at a different school, which I transferred to. When I reached middle school, she was promoted to Assistant Head of the middle school. Every time I got detention, I had to serve it with her as the disciplinary figure until I complained it was unfair, which they agreed with. But that just made things worse.
So, they promoted her to Head of the middle school, with complete power over my life. Finally, after surviving, I made it to high school, where they started an experimental schedule and curriculum designed by my mother. I would spend 6 AM to 6 PM at school with my mother as she designed my—and all of my peers’—future curriculum and punishments.
And that didn’t even include the obligation of being a teacher/administrator’s child at the school. The social obligations were unending. If there was an annoying kid and the entire teacher body was worried because he didn’t have friends, his mom would complain until my mom forced me to have play dates with him all year.
8. Like Night And Day
My parents parented my brother and me VERY differently. My mom taught me to be independent at a very young age. When I was 7, she would have me go into the grocery store by myself to pick up a few items while she waited in the car with my brother so I could learn how to shop and pay for things on my own. She would also drop me off at places I went to after school or for summer classes, and I had to find out where I was going.
I had to figure out how to navigate the building, find a place to get lunch, etc., and she would pick me up later in the day. I still remember her telling me, "You have to learn to do things on your own now, even if it's scary." I got my first job at 14, working in an office, and was able to buy things for myself in high school. I was rarely ever home and didn't see my parents much. In hindsight, all of it was messed up.
For the most part, they were pretty hands-off with me as a teen, except I wasn't allowed to date or hang out alone with boys. That was their only rule, but I was more focused on school and my after-school jobs, so it wasn't a big deal. On the other hand, my brother was never let out of my parents' sight. They scrutinized his school work, and he didn't get to do fun after-school stuff when he was young like me.
He was glued to my parents and was spoiled constantly. My parents made all his decisions for him—what he would wear, who his friends would be, where he went to school, and what classes he would take. For his junior prom, they arranged a date for him. He was expected to live at home, help with the family business, and work a job my dad arranged for him.
We turned out so differently. I moved out at 18. My parents refused to help me with college, so I paid for it all myself, working two jobs. I've never once asked nor received any help from them and have traveled all over the country, built a great resume, and had extensive life experience. However, my parents absolutely ruined my brother. At 25, he still lived at home.
My parents fully paid his tuition at a four-year university and let him live at home rent-free, and he refused even to finish his last credits to graduate. He worked a minimum wage job for four hours a day and had no ambitions other than riding dirt bikes. We barely talked because I found him incredibly boring. He never left our small town and would rarely leave the house.
He only had one girlfriend who was incredibly controlling and made him her manservant. He was terrible with money and would spend whatever he had immediately. He ended up being very immature, yet my dad refused to let him leave, threatening to disinherit him if he did.
9. I Felt Like A Caged Animal
When I was 17 years old, I couldn’t go out unless it was with my parents. There were very few exceptions involving school and someone watching me. I was 6 feet tall and totally normal. My dad was one of those people who read truly idiotic and false articles about safety and believed every situation I was involved in would result in a gruesome end. It got worse and worse over the years. My freedom was at a bare minimum.
I lost all of my friends because I wasn't allowed to hang out with them because it wasn't "safe". I wasn’t a substance user. My friends were nerds who just wanted to play Yugioh and video games. I had a strict bedtime of 9:00 PM—if I was lucky, 9:10 PM—and couldn’t fall asleep for hours. I would just lay there. My dad would get extremely mad if I got a B and disappointed with an A-. I wasn’t allowed to have any extracurricular activities.
As soon as I left school, I was required to go home and would try to squeeze in some very light gaming on my PC, then do homework. I wasn’t allowed to get a part-time job in the event I might get tempted by minimum wage and decide it was good enough and quit school. I wasn’t permitted to have a pet because I was deemed "irresponsible" and would not take care of it. I was treated like a caged-up hamster.
10. Under Hover
My boyfriend's parents were the worst about hovering. I was 21, and he was 23. His parents were both fully aware I was on birth control and that I never wanted children. However, that didn’t stop them from constantly trying to chaperone us. If we were watching a show in the living room and his dad was home, he would be either in the same room as us or one room away.
He's asked us not to recline too much on the sofa or in chairs and not to watch such "depressing" TV shows such as Stranger Things and Mr. Robot. We weren’t allowed to hang out in my boyfriend’s bedroom or the basement. If we went out, his parents needed to know where he was going, when he would be back, and who he was with.
I totally get checking in, but they would call all his friends if he didn’t text them right away. Once, we were at a movie, so he shut his phone off. There were 18 missed calls in the two hours we were out. They treated a grown man like a child. I hated them.
11. Hard To B-lieve!
I love my parents, but they could have been less helicopter-y. Until the age of 16, I wasn't allowed to go outside in my front yard alone. When I was 14, I was finally allowed in the backyard alone. I couldn’t go for a bike ride with my friends around the neighborhood. If they wanted to do that, they had to ride in a circle around my tiny backyard with me. It was not fun.
I wasn’t permitted to have any boyfriends or any friends that were boys until I was 30. When I brought home my first boyfriend at 16, they flipped out. The TV in my room was v-chipped. While everyone was watching Naruto and Dragonball Z, I was watching Veggie Tales. I wasn't allowed to watch Rugrats because I would "turn into Angelica." The reason I couldn't watch Arthur was even worse. My father thought his little sister was a bad influence.
I wasn’t allowed to drive any of the cars, so I didn't get my license until halfway through my first year of college. I was then terrified of driving. I wasn't allowed to hold a job, so when I tried to apply for jobs, I got turned down for not having any prior work experience. My parents had access to all my grades, emails, and phone calls.
They even tried to call one of my professors in college because I had a B in the class and demanded to know why. I laughed when my professor told me she politely hung up on them. At 21 years old, I still wasn’t allowed to go over to a friend's house for the night unless I could confirm that there would be no boys sleeping in opposite rooms. I missed out on a lot of stuff.
Public Domain Pictures
12. She Took Debit Measures
My significant other wasn't "allowed" to get a debit card until he moved out when he was in his early 20s. He tried once, and his mother intercepted the mail and destroyed it. He attempted to confront her about it—partially because it was extremely unlawful to do that—but she had already hidden the evidence.
13. Daddy Issues
My dad was a helicopter parent. I wasn't allowed to go to friends’ houses, have friends over, ride the school bus, or talk on the phone because he thought I would do dope and get pregnant the minute I was out of sight, even when I was 11 years old. He didn't work during the day and would park his car outside the middle school/high school to "make sure I wasn't galavanting" and I didn't leave the school.
He also called a few of my teachers weekly to make sure I was going to my band/gym/drama lessons because he thought those would be prime times for me to skip class. Because of his actions, the other kids at school teased me quite a bit, so I barely had any friends. When I stayed at his house, I would come home from school and play video games all day.
Even when I stayed with my mom—who was a very normal parent, if not a little disappointed—I wasn't a social butterfly. I only had one friend who I regularly hung out with. We mostly played video games and wrote vampire fan fiction. I wasn't part of the crowd that a parent would have to worry about, yet he constantly accused me of sleeping around or partying whenever he could. Eventually, it just...broke me.
I have terrible trust issues, was diagnosed with anxiety disorder, and finally moved to the other side of the world to build a life after college. I'm not close at all with my family. I still talk to my mother and brother, but just out of social obligation. My brother was allowed to do whatever he wanted growing up and became socially well adjusted. My father resents me and doesn't understand why I no longer talk to him.
14. Children Of The Banned
My mom had her moments. I was banned from talking to certain people. It didn't stop me, but I was "banned" as far as she was concerned. In high school, I worked two jobs to get out of the house, so I didn't have to socialize just with people she approved of. Certain relatives were blocked on my phone for the same reason. If I didn't get straight A’s, I was basically confined to my room to do "homework".
Ultimately, I went to a college within the state but still some 400 miles away. That's when I finally put my foot down. I had to call every day for a while, but sooner or later, I made excuses on why I couldn't talk, and it slowly dwindled down to about once a week. She tried to make me come home every two weeks, but my dad helped me out by explaining how impractical and expensive that would be.
She eventually improved as I got older, although she was still very strict about the girls I would date, and she disapproved of. She once told me a girl I was seeing was too good for me and encouraged me to break up with her. By the time I got into my early 20s, I just started making traveling plans and then telling her after the fact. In my mid-20s, I just didn't say anything at all anymore. I finally became a functional adult. It just took a lot longer than it should have.
15. Her Parenting Plan Backfired
One day, I was sleeping over at a friend’s house. I told my mom I would be home at 10 AM. I woke up at 2 PM to a phone without any battery left and seven voicemails, each progressively more worrisome and intense than the last. I called her up, and an officer answered. She had called the authorities. The officer told me to give him the address of where I was.
He came to my friend’s house, put me in the backseat, and went to talk to my friend and his mom. The officer came back and started driving me home and asked me questions, trying to imply I was a bad kid. Too bad it backfired on them like crazy. I couldn’t have cared less. I was having way too much fun waving at people from the backseat of a cruiser since I wasn't cuffed.
After that, my mom was even more strict. She never let me go to parties unless they were school related. When I got to university two years later, I went balls out with partying every day and night for nine months until I dropped out. Her intentions were good but then I became anything but self-reliant.
16. It’s A No-Knock Life
My parents did not understand the concept of privacy. They would just barge in like RPG heroes and act surprised when we nearly had heart attacks. This got very annoying when I was in the bathroom and they would barge in since we didn’t have a lock on the door. I would lock the door to my bedroom, and they would spend several minutes trying to open it—not a single knock. I had to teach the concept of privacy to myself.
17. Hard Shut Down
One night, my parents caught me playing GTA V when I was supposed to be doing homework. They took my computer and put it in a storage locker ten miles from our house. I finished the second semester of my high school sophomore year with five A's and two B's. Nearly a year later, my monitor and keyboard would sit on my desk, collecting dust.
Meanwhile, the beautiful desktop I had built myself sat freezing every night in a concrete garage, awaiting the day I would reawaken it. They would also use Find My iPhone to track where I was at all times. The WiFi would go down at 10 PM every night, and my phone wouldn’t let me text past 10:30 PM. I know these were first-world problems, but it sucked.
18. Oh, Baby!
I dated a girl with the WORST helicopter mom ever. This woman was like a caricature of a Jewish mother. When I first started dating this girl, she was so beaten down psychologically by her mom that I actually gently asked if her mother was physically harming her because that's how scared and broken she seemed. To start, her mother couldn't cope with the fact her beautiful, feminine daughter was a raging lesbian.
She hated me for being a woman, as well as not being Jewish, rich, or going to or graduating from an Ivy League school. One of the creepiest things ever was her room. Her mother had not let her redecorate her bedroom since it was a nursery. My girlfriend was 19 and 20 the years we dated. If you saw her bedroom, you would have assumed a 7-year-old child lived there.
It was decorated in loads of pink—which she hated—and frilly wallpaper, carpet, and bedding. The bed was also a day bed, which mildly looked like a crib. The room was also small, like a baby's room, which was even weirder since they lived in an enormous house. There was another, larger room that she could have had. And that's not even the creepiest part about her “nursery.”
It wasn’t the house they lived in when she was a baby. My girlfriend and her family moved there when she was about ten, and, at ten, she begged for a more mature room.
The mom also refused to let my girlfriend spend the night at my house. She once said she would call the authorities and tell them I had abducted her if she stayed and threatened to take away her necessary medication and therapy if she spent the night with me. She would try to control things my girlfriend read and watched. Her mom once went with her when she got a Brazilian wax to “mind where the wax went.”
My girlfriend barely had any life skills because she wasn't allowed to do things for herself. She didn't know how to write a check or use cutlery properly. She was embarrassed about it and wanted to be independent. She also spoke to me as though I was her babysitter, which creeped me out.
19. My Mom Was A Peeping Tom
In my freshman year of high school, I stayed the night at a friend's house about three miles down the road from mine, on the same busy street. She lived on the corner of the street with an alley separating her backyard from the backyard of the house directly behind her. We were hanging out in front of her neighbor’s house across the street at about 9 PM.
Her neighbors were cute boys we went to school with. Suddenly, my friend hit me on the arm and said, "What are those ladies doing? Are they looking into my house"?! I looked over and—and my heart dropped. It was my mom and her friend. Not even noticing that we were standing on the corner, they continued to stand on their tippy toes and jump up and down by pulling themselves up on the fence to try to peak over and into her house.
I pretended I didn't know who it was, hoping my mom would notice us and just disappear into the dark alley, never to be seen again, before my friend could recognize that it was indeed my own mother. After about 20 seconds of this painful sight, my friend said, "Wait, isn't that your mom"?! All I could think to do was yell out, "MOM”?
They awkwardly looked over at us, let go of the fence, and did the slow old lady walk/run into the alley. It was honestly so hard to watch. I had to admit to my friend and the cute boys that my mom was a psycho. To this day, I still cringe thinking about it, and sadly, that's not the only story I have like this.
20. Locked Up
My parents were pretty crazy about parenting to begin with. As I got older, they became crazier. They wouldn't let me move out to go to university at 18, so I ended up living at home. They wouldn't let me date, would have crazy arguments, and occasionally get physical with me if they discovered I had spoken to a boy. They limited my time on the internet and confiscated my phone even after I was an adult and paid for it myself.
I left home and went to stay at my boyfriend’s house, four hours away. They called the authorities and reported me missing. They constantly hounded me with calls and texts. I went to see them two months later, and they locked me into my old bedroom. My boyfriend had to call the authorities again so I could leave without them hurting me.
21. They Spoiled My Life
For me, everything was taken care of. My parents wouldn't let me have a go at doing the dishes until I was 16. I kept hearing and seeing that kids got paid allowances for doing chores. So I asked if I could, and they just laughed and said, "Get good grades! That's all we want from you". After that, I grew up a spoiled brat with some high grades. I regret all of it.
I didn't learn basic things about respect, how to look for a job, or how to grow up. At 19, I had to Google "how to grow up and be an adult" because I didn't know where to start. My parents were loving. They just never trusted me to do anything by myself. Even at 18, my mom was still overprotective and tried to helicopter me every chance she got. I had to move away to get away.
22. Step-Off Stepdad!
My parents weren’t always strict and controlling. They were pretty easygoing until I started public school in 7th grade. That's when things started to go wrong. It began with the pretty common “no boyfriends/no texting boys/and wanting to meet friends before I went over to their house”. Soon after, I couldn't hang out with anyone they didn't approve of. I had to stop talking to my BEST FRIEND abruptly.
It was all because we were really loud in gym class, and my gym teacher told my parents at conferences that we were trouble when we were together. Once I made a Facebook page, they had to approve of everyone I added as a friend, and they had my password so they could oversee my conversations. Not only could I not text or message anyone after 10 PM, but they also couldn't message ME!
If they did, I got yelled at. I had and still have a problem making friends. They got way worse when I had my first crush in 9th grade. He had given me his iPod to take home, and I forgot to bring it back for a week or so. My stepdad read the Facebook messages from him, reminding me to bring his iPod to school. He yelled at me because I had something of this boy’s.
Then, my stepdad knew about this boy’s existence, and it was bad news for the both of us. At the Sadie Hawkins dance, my crush and I took a photo together. He made it his profile picture, and when my stepdad saw it, he told me that if he didn’t change it that I would be grounded because he was playing us off as a couple. Then, when school was over, one of my friends was at my house and said we should go to the car show.
My stepdad agreed to take us, and when we got there, my crush was there. My stepdad went completely silent and got an evil look on his face. After he drove my friends home, I got screamed at and grounded for the summer. It didn't end there. Tenth grade started a few months after that, and my crush and I were still into each other. I was going to be 16 in two months, which meant we would officially be able to date.
Somewhere in that time frame, there was a retreat that we had to go to at our church for confirmation. My crush was in my confirmation group and would be at the said retreat, which my stepfather knew. The night before the retreat, I was ready for bed, wearing a tank top and shorts. My stepdad asked what I planned on bringing for pajamas to the retreat. I looked at my current ensemble and said, “Probably just this”. He exploded.
By then, I was used to him being a complete jerk about everything, so I had to try hard not to laugh at how ridiculous he was being. I looked at a spot on the wall above him because if I looked at his face, I'd lose my composure. He accused me of rolling my eyes at him and told me I was no longer allowed to go to this CHURCH retreat—that was required—to confirm me as a Catholic.
My mom finally stepped in and said I was going. The week before my 16th birthday, my crush and three of our friends went to see In Time. My mom knew who was going to be there, and my stepdad didn’t ask. After the movie, my friend Jake asked for a ride home, and I said yes. My stepdad came to pick us up and acted like a complete jerk to Jake for no reason.
After we dropped him off, he asked in an angry tone, "Since when were there boys at this gathering"? He then found out my crush was also there and flipped his noodle, calling the outing "a double date plus one" because there were two other guys and a girl. My punishment for this offense was that I would be grounded. On my birthday.
I hated my life for about six more months until I told my mom that I was no longer taking orders from my stepdad and that she needed to start being my mom again. Miraculously, this worked in my favor. My Facebook account became only accessible to me. I could text whoever I wanted whenever I wanted, I could date my crush, and I didn't have someone looking over my should 24/7.
23. Church Was Not My Savior
I was raised Evangelical Southern Baptist and was in church 5–6 days a week, twice on Sundays. Other than school, the church was my only social life. I went against my parent's wishes and decided to go to college and become a theater major. I lost my virginity a few weeks after I left home. I went to church the very first Sunday at a "sister church" but never went back again.
I had people from the BSU (Baptist Student Union) all up in my face for a while, but eventually, they gave up. To say I was woefully unprepared for the outside world was an understatement. I had no idea how to live independently, and a year later—when my parents demanded I come home or they were cutting off my financial aid—I got a job and worked out my tuition support with the college myself.
I rented a crummy little place in my college town with some roommates and learned how to live on a budget. The net result of this was a strained relationship with my parents that took years and years to resolve. I visited home exactly once after I graduated college and before my mother's passing twelve years later. My dad and I finally had a good relationship, but it took a while to forge.
While it's natural to want to protect children, shielding them from every little thing is a huge mistake, even when done in the guise of religious upbringing. Teaching your kid to fear everyone and everything will only net a kid incapable of thinking for themselves. I was lucky to have good, supportive friends who looked out for me in those early college years. I made many mistakes that could have ended badly out of naivete or ignorance.
24. This Interview Did An About Face
I used to have a computer business and was doing interviews for an on-site tech. One applicant was a recent college graduate. He had a decent resume, so I called to chat and maybe offer a face-to-face interview. However, I didn't get to speak to him. I got his mom instead. That was the first red flag. The clincher was his mom insisted that she sit in on the actual interview with him. I did not call him in for one, but part of me wanted to, for curiosity's sake. I was too worried I would get hounded by psycho mom if he didn't get the job, so that was that.
25. Time To Unfriend Dad
My first rated R movie was the Facebook horror flick Unfriended. I watched it with my dad. When a girl took off her clothes during a Skype chat, he turned to me and said, "You know we can leave at any time if you are uncomfortable". He said this every time anything remotely racy came up. However, he didn’t say it during the blender scene though.
26. Photo Bomb
I wouldn't say my parents were "helicopter parents" because I had a healthy amount of freedom and individuality growing up. My mom, however, did do some questionable stuff. One of her signature moves was to send me pictures of herself whenever I was out hanging with friends. She had read in an article that if I were doing dope or were up to no good, it would make me feel guilty, and I would come home or something. It didn't work.
27. Her Mom Was Such A Drag
My girlfriend's mom was an awful helicopter parent, and she finally had enough. My girlfriend was 19 and paid all her own bills, yet she was constantly being manipulated and controlled by her mother. She told her mom she was going to be at my place for a few days. She knew how her mother would react. So, she thought to pack everything in my car ahead of time and had me parked outside her house.
After an hour or so of waiting, I saw my girlfriend running from her mom while her mom was chasing her and attempting to drag her back into the house in my rearview mirror. My girlfriend said her mom told her she would grab her by her hair and take her back in against her will.
28. Watching My Every Move
My mom would not let me go out with friends when boys were with us because she believed they would have their way with me as soon as they got a chance. My parents would regularly read my emails, text messages, and Facebook. They also wanted to know everything I ate when I was not with them to make sure I wouldn't become fat, even though I was slightly underweight.
29. I Didn’t Plan On This
I had given my final presentation for my architecture studio after many weeks of minimal sleep. I was so tired that I went home and immediately fell asleep for seven hours. I woke up at 11 PM to the authorities banging on the bedroom window of my apartment, with 24 missed calls, 18 voicemails, and 11 texts. Since I didn't tell my dad how my presentation went, he assumed I was no longer alive.
30. Heavy Metal Madness
I went to a concert in a very safe, affluent area. I had VIP tickets, so I got there extremely early, at about 6 PM, for an 8 PM show. It lasted until about 1 AM. My parents were texting me THE ENTIRE TIME. They offered to buy me mace and told me to “hold my keys in my hand the entire time [because] you know how metal heads are”. They told me to call them when I got there, during intermission, and when I was about to drive home.
I was 20! Meanwhile, they let my brother go to Africa TWICE—at a way younger age—16 and 18—and didn't give him any trouble about that at all. My dad was the guardian of my bank account and questioned every little purchase I made. I had a little more than $8,000 saved, and he would constantly be on me about my money. My brother worked about 10 hours a week and could barely pay his insurance.
31. Strange Bedfellows
I knew someone who was 23 years old and still shared a bed with their mom. Yes, you read that correctly. They lost their retail job when their mom showed up for every single shift and just stood there watching. One time when there was a customer issue, the mom jumped in and started fighting with the customer, so he got fired. The sad part was that he didn’t see the problem.
32. Throw This Mama From The Train
I was seeing a helicopter son. I realized this when he introduced me to his mother. I knew she was overprotective, so I avoided meeting his parents. However, he was keen to introduce me to them, and, with persuasion, he convinced me. I was a huge mistake. I had stayed overnight at his house, and the next morning after meeting them, he came to me and said his mother had told him I had to go home. The reason was that I was distracting him from his studies. It was a seven-hour train journey and an extra cost to rebook my ticket. We were 20.
33. Daddy’s Little Girl Lost
My friend was raised by a father who did everything for her well into adulthood. I had met her in her early to mid-20s, a few years after she had dropped out of college. She came from a good family, good neighborhood, etc. but went to college with no idea how to do anything for herself. Her parents had essentially gotten her through high school and into college for her.
She was in her 20s, had no job, and not even a bank account. If she needed anything, she called her dad. I couldn't believe how dumb some of the stuff was. Like if she wanted a Cup O’ Noodles, rather than walking across the street to get one, she'd call her dad at work. He'd leave work, drive the hour to her, pick one up at the place across the street, come in, heat up the water, and make it for her.
He took care of everything, every bill, every task, every dentist and doctor's appointment, etc.
She had no education, no goals, and no ambition. She wouldn't even help around the house—no cooking or cleaning. If no one did those things for her, the place would quickly look like squatters or hoarders lived there. Her dad, boyfriend, or roommates cleaned up after her.
She always had a boyfriend—usually rich—and she'd always live with them and off them.
That worked great throughout her twenties when she was young, attractive, and charming. There was no shortage of men, and she was still young enough to be "daddy's little girl" who could do no wrong. However, in her early 30s, her dad began having health and business problems and couldn't financially support her and dote on her as much. That's when the REAL trouble started.
She had to rely more and more on boyfriends. Unfortunately, she learned that while some guys might dote on a hot 22-year-old, they're less inclined to do that for an only somewhat attractive but utterly useless 30-something-year-old. She even tried the "getting knocked up" idea, getting pregnant by a man she barely knew. She started fantasizing about being a kept wife, just raising the kid, while the husband took care of money, housing, etc.
It worked for a bit, and they lived at his swanky place for a while. However, as someone incapable of taking care of herself, she couldn't take care of a kid. The guy left her before they ever got married and sued for custody of the child. She was then back to being alone and tried to find another man to take care of her. Only now, she had the baggage of a kid and a custody battle hanging over her head. She just kept spiraling.
Finding a new boyfriend to care for her didn't work as well as it used to. Somehow she ended up a mistress to some wealthy, married 70-year-old. He paid her rent, gave her free reign with his credit cards, etc. She got a little too obvious about it all with $7,000 a month in charges and flaunting her relationship with him around at fancy stores and restaurants, the wife found out, and he eventually cut her off.
After that, she briefly tried taking care of herself, but no one would hire her. She was in her 30s, with no education, no skills, and no work experience. This really hurt her ego because she considered herself a rich and upper-class person. She always ate at the best places, wore the fanciest clothes, and lived in nice neighborhoods. But here she was with no money, no bank account, and no one to take care of her.
She eventually got a job as a waitress, but that only lasted about a week. She ultimately ended up relying on unlawful forms of financial support and teamed up with someone who was cooking up crank. They started a pretty decent-sized manufacturing and distribution operation and got busted by the authorities. Her dad sold his house and basically bankrupted himself to pay for top-notch lawyers.
34. The Runaway
I was the child of Jehovah's Witnesses. They tried to control every aspect of my life. I ran away from home when I was 16 because I couldn't take it anymore. At that point, I was physically ill with ulcers from all the stress. Later, I drank way too much and slept with many more people than was healthy for me emotionally. I lost all focus for a while and became severely depressed. It took me more than a decade to finally recover.
35. Cut Loose
My mom had good intentions, but she was always way too involved with my social life. One summer, I moved back home after the school year but went to spend the night on campus with a girl I was seeing. My mom found her on Facebook and messaged her asking her where I was. I was mortified. I had been talking to this girl for MAYBE a month.
At that point, I just cut my mom out of my social life altogether. I didn’t tell her who my friends were or anything. 20 years old is too old to have a parent THAT involved in your social life.
36. The Riding Was On The Wall
A kid I hung around with when we were 11 or so had a helicopter mom. She wouldn't let him ride his bike to the other side of the neighborhood, which was less than 1/4 mile from our houses. Whenever we would hang out with him, we had to stay on the street in front of his house, and his mom would always watch us through one of the front windows.
37. Helicoptering Was Not The Answer
My mom had to know where I was at all times. When I went to school three hours away, if I didn't text her back within five minutes, I'd get texts saying, "ANSWER ME", among other things. I moved back home at 20 and still had a curfew of 9:30 PM because she didn't want me hanging out with "bad people". That, along with growing up under her thumb and never getting to do much unless she was right there with me, really strained our relationship. I even went “no contact” with her for a few months. She calmed down a lot for the most part, but our relationship isn't what would typically be expected in a normal child/parent one.
38. This Helicopter Parent Was A Hair Razer
I see a lot of helicopter parents at my job. The one I remember had a "can I speak to the manager" haircut and stood behind me the entire time I was cutting her child's hair. Then when I was done, after he told me how much he loved it, she kept asking him if he was really sure he liked it. This went on for about 10 minutes until the kid started crying. I ended up having to do the haircut again—twice—until it was the length the mom wanted.
39. The Lost Boy
When I went away to college, my parents would call me every day. I went away to a fraternity weekend retreat during my freshman year, where we pledges weren't supposed to bring our phones. I told my parents that I was going away for three days and not to call me. On the day we were coming back, the guy driving us got a call.
He then handed me his phone and told me to call my parents. My stomach hit the floor. When my parents couldn't reach me for three days, they came to my college. They went around my dorm and half the campus asking everyone if they had seen their lost little boy. I was 18 at the time. On top of that, since I was on their family cell phone plan, they looked up all the numbers I had recently called and texted them.
They called everyone, told them I was "lost", and asked if they knew where I was. This included girls I had crushes on but barely knew, random classmates, and mild acquaintances. When I got back to my worried parents waiting for me at my dorm, I found my cell phone with a bunch of messages from people asking if I was okay and letting me know my parents were looking for me. For the next day, every 1 in 5 people I walked passed would ask me if I talked to my parents because they were looking for me.
40. The Jury Was Out
When I was 21, my dad followed me into jury duty because he didn't believe I could do it myself. I insisted that he shouldn’t come, but he did anyways. He was stopped by security guards outside the area, and he threw a massive fuss about not being able to accompany me. Most of the courtroom was confused and weirded out. Luckily, they didn't need me throughout the trial, so I was dismissed.
41. Done With Daddy
I didn't go to any school dances or sporting events. No prom, nothing. I was not allowed to go to the mall by myself when I was 19 years old; my dad would follow me around. He would walk about five feet behind me. When I was 20, I said I was going to get a cell phone and got into a big argument with my parents because they didn't want me to have one.
I had been working since I was 15 and was going to pay for it myself. I couldn't lock the door to my bedroom or bathroom, even in my early 20s. Moving out was the best thing ever. When I was 31, he would still show up at my work and tell my coworker to say to me that my "daddy" was there to see me. I wanted to throw up. I think the last time I called him "daddy" was when I was seven or eight. NOBODY calls him "daddy".
42. Up To His Ears In Trouble
My buddy had the worst helicopter mom. We were going to college three hours away from his hometown and ended up at a random after-bar party with people we had met just that night. His mom showed up—no idea how she found us—walked in, grabbed him by the ear, and dragged him out to her car. She then proceeded to drive him back to our hometown.
The next day, she made him get a ride back to college with his former high school sweetheart that he had recently broken up with. She did all that because she disapproved of the breakup. He then got married to a woman who was, in my opinion, also rather controlling. Oedipus is real!
43. First Born Fury
I was the oldest and the one who mostly heard, "no, don't do that, you will get hurrrrrt". The highlight was when I was in college and studying abroad. I told them that I wasn’t going to have internet access or phone access for the first week I was there. They emailed the professor who went with the group multiple times in the first week to ensure I was alive because I wasn't responding to their emails. I loved them, but I was in Bavaria—I was pretty sure I would survive.
44. Any Minute Now…
The first year I taught, we could see when parents logged in to see their kids’ grades. It kept a record of it. Most parents would check at the end of every day, maybe every two days. One parent checked her kid's grades every TEN MINUTES EVERY DAY. As soon as someone entered something, or if her kid had a missing assignment, we would get an email within a couple of minutes every time.
45. A Questionable Existence
At 13, I started working in my parents' café. My mom had to know where I was at all times. This was pre-cell phone, so I had to give reports of what I'd done any time I was out of her sight, where I'd been, and who I'd seen. This continued until I was in my late 20s and had been living apart for over ten years. She quizzed all the employees about anyone I dated to know if they were worthy of her son and picked them apart behind my back.
I pretty much had to sneak around making secret dates for years. It was absolutely exhuasting. She got regular reports from my friends, coworkers, bosses, and neighbors. Friendly officers would tell her where I'd been observed driving or parking at different times. Friends I shared things with were quizzed about my girlfriends and intimate details like who I was seeing, what we had done, whether I was drinking, doing dope, whether I was doing well at work, etc.
Then, we would have near-daily talk sessions where she would drop random remarks to let me know that she knew everything I was doing 24 hours a day. At the time, I was pretty stoic about it. I finally had to move to a state 2,500 miles away to get some privacy and begin to feel like an adult. Looking back over the years, I realized how crazy this behavior was.
46. Time To Call It Quits
A kid I lived in the same dorm with freshman year of college had crazy helicopter parents. I never met them, but they came and visited every weekend that they could, which was saying a lot considering we were in school in Connecticut and he was from New Jersey. They also threatened to stop paying for the chunk of tuition he didn't have covered by financial aid if he didn't call them in between all of his classes, when he got up in the morning, and before he went to bed so he could update them on his day. He transferred to a school closer to home because those calls cut so heavily into his homework time that he started flunking classes.
47. Nice Job, Mom!
My brother had a job interview one day that was about two hours away and would take most of the day. My mom received a call from the bank stating that there was some strange activity on his debit card. She freaked out, thinking he was being abducted or something. He wasn’t answering his phone since he was in an hours-long interview. Then she went off the deep end.
My mom tried to call the company he was interviewing with but had no luck tracking down the person he was meeting with. So, she looked up this guy's home phone number and called it. She talked to his wife, who ended up calling him on his cell. He got the call and was baffled about what was going on. He and my brother could not believe what was happening.
My brother was angry and beyond embarrassed. My dad was there the whole time, telling my mom to calm down and not to call, but she could not be easily persuaded. To this day, she still insists she did the right thing. My brother didn’t get the job.
48. Lost At Sea
I was in California for a wedding, and my mom and I decided to go to the beach for a while. I went for a walk down the shore and was gone 20 minutes longer than I said I would be. I came back to my mom crying to this surfer that she had lost her son. The guy was thinking that this little kid was missing and was about to look for me when I showed up. He was in for a big surprise.
I was 23. She didn't even think to call me. She just jumped to the conclusion that I was abducted or no longer alive.
49. Doomed On The First Date
I was on my first ever date with my first girlfriend. My mother knew we were going to dinner and a movie and that I would be home at around 11 or 12. I guess I had neglected to charge my phone that day because the battery ran out before dinner. We got back to her place, and I went in to kiss her goodnight. It was my first kiss. Then everything went so wrong, so fast.
Her dad was waiting by the door for us to wrap up because as soon as we finished, he peeked through the door frame and held a cordless phone out to me. He said, "It's the authorities. They want to talk to you". I thought he was making some jab at me being with his daughter, so I awkwardly chuckled and said, “Yeah, OK”. He said, "No, really, your mother is looking for you".
Apparently, she tried to file a missing person report, and the authorities somehow tracked down my girlfriend’s home number to check there first. It was so embarrassing, and I was extremely furious with her when I got back. I was 19 years old when this happened.
50. His Lifestyle Didn’t Work For Her
My ex-boyfriend’s mom was a helicopter parent. She would not allow him or his sister to have a job. At one point, his mother called up his job, saying he wasn't allowed to work, and got him fired when she found out. She instead gave them $200 a week to do with whatever they wanted—unless they were buying something their mom didn't like, like ice cream. My ex had to take out cash to buy that and then throw out the receipt so that she wouldn’t know.
She then had him committed to a psych ward at the age of 20 because he refused to pick up her calls. He was a fencer, so when she put in the call to the authorities, she said he was “armed and dangerous.” As a middle-class person looking in, it seemed to me more than just general overprotectiveness.
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