No one would deny that parenting is hard, but these mothers and fathers really got it wrong. Instead of letting their kids be kids, they tried to micromanage every little thing about their lives…and made everyone else miserable in the process. Here are the most outrageous instances of “helicopter parents” ever.
1. They (Don’t) Grow Up So Fast
I knew a mother who kept her five-year-old daughter in diapers. And not for any reasonable reason, either. Her logic was absurd. It was because, when they went out, she didn’t want her daughter using public restrooms. Because apparently sitting in a dirty diaper was somehow healthier.
2. Cheaters Never Prosper
My wife is a teacher, so she dealt with helicopter parents all the time. Usually, she’d give that kind of parent small, boring tasks so they wouldn’t disrupt the class. But with one parent, she had to take more serious action.
This parent became so intrusive—asking to see lesson plans and expecting my wife to use class time to re-teach things—that she finally decided to handle it herself.
One day, while the parent was in the classroom, she intentionally left an upcoming quiz where the parent could see it. The parent copied it and gave her child the answers. Since the child wasn’t a strong student, my wife was able to get the parent to admit she had taken the quiz and passed along the answers.
It went to the principal, who banned her from the classroom. The parent filed several complaints and even brought it to a district meeting. The school board upheld the ban.
3. My Precious
The child I know with a helicopter mom is about nine years old, so around third grade. I’ve known him since before he started school. His mom is an acquaintance of mine, and he’s been in classes with one of my kids, who’s the same age. She has inserted herself into every activity and classroom he’s ever been part of. At first, she volunteers in the classroom in the usual way.
Most teachers ask for a few hours once or twice a week, just for extra help at our school. But gradually, she starts showing up more and more, whether the teacher asked her to or not. Some teachers have told her to stop, but others just allow it. She basically spends every day with him and never gives him any room to breathe. She hovers over everything he does, and if it’s not perfect, she “fixes” it.
I’m pretty sure she’s done his homework herself more than once. Sometimes teachers send home an art project, like decorating a pumpkin in the fall or something similar, and his always looks like an adult made it alone. She never lets him deal with anything uncomfortable or challenging. She actually got upset when she told his first-grade teacher, “He woke up in a sad mood today.”
The teacher replied, “I’ll keep an eye on him, but I think he’ll be okay.” That response made her furious, and she later complained to me about it. I ended up asking her, “But was he okay, though?” And yes—he was. What had she wanted? She wanted the teacher to make a huge fuss over him and give him special treatment. She thought the teacher didn’t care because she didn’t rush to comfort him.
4. Time To Cut The Cord
My sister is a freshman in college, and her roommate’s mother is completely over the top. They’re both on the cross-country team and are excellent students. My sister says the roommate never drinks or goes out partying, but her mom tracks her through her phone GPS and constantly texts her asking why she’s at this place or that place.
My sister said that one time they were at Walmart buying groceries, and her mom called to ask why she was at Walmart at 9 p.m. Another time, they drove to my other sister’s apartment—she lives in the same town—to pick something up, and the girl’s mom called yelling, asking why she had been sitting in a parking lot for 20 minutes.
My sister says she also has to send photos of them at the library to prove they’re really studying. I just don’t understand that level of smothering. I mean, if you want to check in on your kid, fine—especially if you’re paying the bills. But really, the poor girl can’t even have a normal college experience and is always worried about upsetting her mom.
It all seems really unhealthy to me. I knew friends in high school whose parents acted like that, but once your kids are adults and in college, you really have to let go a little.
5. Not A Good Enough Reason For An Amber Alert
I worked at a small community library. A kid lived in the building across the parking lot from it. He would leave his building, walk the roughly 150 feet to the library’s front door, come to the desk, and use the courtesy phone to call his mom and tell her he had made it safely. Yes, really. She just couldn’t handle it. But one day, everything fell apart.
I remember the day he forgot to do it. She came rushing into the library about five minutes later, completely panicked, saying her son had been kidnapped and that we needed to find him immediately.
6. Overqualified For The Job
I used to teach middle school. The teacher next door gave a sixth-grade girl a C on a paper because it didn’t meet the assignment requirements. The girl’s mom was furious and came to school angry about the grade.
After the teacher and the mom argued back and forth, the mother finally shouted, “I HAVE A COLLEGE DEGREE, I TOOK WRITING COURSES FOR FOUR YEARS, AND I WROTE THIS PAPER. ARE YOU TELLING ME I CAN’T GET AN A ON A SIXTH-GRADE ASSIGNMENT?”
The teacher stood her ground, but never actually answered that question.
7. Take It Easy
My mom is definitely a helicopter parent. When my mom and brother came to visit me in the city where I was living at the time, we went to a famous tourist building. She had already been there before, so she stayed downstairs at a coffee shop while my brother and I went up to the top. The line was huge, and while we were waiting, he was telling me about all the times she’d panic because I hadn’t answered her texts for a day.
We joked that, with how long the whole visit was taking, she was probably already calling the authorities. We had no idea how close that joke was.
When we finally came out, there she was, talking to an officer. Because apparently the most likely explanation was that two adults had been kidnapped in a crowded building full of tourists and security.
8. A Little Slice Of Life
There was a 13-year-old kid down the street with the most over-the-top family. His mom, dad, and grandma were always with him. Always. He had never been away from them. Even if they had a nanny watching him, one of them would still be there. He was never allowed to do anything on his own. But then it got even stranger.
We had them over for a party at the park, and when the 13-year-old asked for a hot dog, his mom completely panicked. Not because it was a hot dog—some parents do have food rules—but because I handed it to him whole. She took it out of his hand and cut it into tiny bites, the way I did for my one-year-old at the time.
Then she gave it back to him like she had just rescued him. To be clear, he was a typical teenager with no developmental issues. His dad also took him to the bathroom carrying a huge bottle of sanitizer and baby wipes to make sure he washed his hands.
These people all had normal careers—one was a lawyer, one worked in administration at our local hospital, and the grandma had been an executive with the state attorney’s office. Somehow they had taken helicopter parenting to a whole new level.
9. Just Checking In
I once had a mother call me to ask why her son didn’t get the job.
He was 40 years old. And a lawyer.
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10. The Only Thing To Fear Is Fear Itself
I worked with a woman whose four-year-old absolutely loved airplanes. A big air show was coming to the area, so I asked if she was planning to take her son, since he would probably be thrilled. She said she thought air shows were too dangerous and worried that a plane might crash into the crowd. So they didn’t go.
What a shame. She kept her child from an amazing experience because of an irrational fear.
11. One And One Only
I knew a kid a long time ago whose parents watched everything he did way too closely. If he wanted to “play outside,” it had to be at the tiny “park” about 50 feet from their front door. And when he went there, his dad would just stand at the window watching him. Any bad language? Immediate punishment. Sarcasm? Same thing.
I remember one time somebody brought Swedish Fish and was handing them out to everyone. What happened next really surprised me. His mom came rushing out and said, “You can only have ONE fish...” Then she stood there and watched him eat that single fish to make sure he didn’t take another.
Now that kid is so deeply closeted he might as well be wrapping Christmas presents, and he’s so stressed it feels like he could turn coal into diamonds.
12. Slow Your Roll
I work in private elementary education, so helicopter parents are something I know very well. One year, I had a student who was the middle of three children, and her mother was the definition of a helicopter parent. Actually, it went beyond that. She also seemed to have a serious case of wanting to be her 10-year-old’s best friend instead of her parent. Here are just a few examples.
She would come to school events, like plays, and try to sit next to her daughter on the floor. She brought her lunch every single day—not a packed lunch, either. She physically delivered food, often fast food. And she always brought enough for herself too, so it was basically an attempt to eat lunch with her daughter every day.
One day I talked to the student about it and made up a fake rule, saying that if her mom brought lunch, she had to bring me lunch too. That backfired in an unexpected way. The very next day, she brought me a Subway sandwich. She also let her daughter stay home for just about any reason at all. The girl had been absent 25 days the year before she was in my class.
I worked hard to break that habit and got the number down to 14 absences during my year with her. Some of the notes and doctor’s excuses her mom sent in were honestly absurd. And whenever she was on campus for her younger child—like for kindergarten parties or similar events—she would quietly slip away, walk the halls, and peek through the classroom windows of her other two kids just to “check on them.”
I used to joke with the principal that this woman must secretly work for our security company and was trying to expose every weakness in our procedures. We had to create all sorts of new rules for every parent just to deal with this one person. The girl was not a strong student, and I’m pretty sure her mother completed more than half the homework that was turned in. My final interaction with her was unbelievable.
I called both parents in for a conference after I gave the student a zero for missing an assignment because of an unexcused absence. During the meeting, I basically forced the mother to admit that she had taken her daughter shopping that day instead of bringing her to school. The father had no idea this had been happening, and he immediately got upset with her right there in front of me.
It didn’t solve the problem for good—she kept hovering the next year before eventually leaving the school—but it did calm things down while I had the student. The sad part is that parents like this are everywhere. They don’t understand the long-term damage they’re doing or the unhealthy habits they’re helping their children build.
13. See No Evil, Do No Evil
I was helping freshmen move into the dorms because if you volunteered to help the new students, you got to move in three days early and avoid the rush. A man came up to me and asked, “Is this a co-ed dorm?” I said, “Yes...” He replied, “I requested that my daughter be placed in the all-female dorm.” I said, “I understand, sir. That’s actually just across the breezeway. It’s usually in Building X, but that building is being renovated, so they moved it here. That whole wing is all female.”
He said, “But she could walk over here and it would be co-ed.” I said, “Well, yes sir, she could walk anywhere she wants to.” He paused and then said, “...I’ll tell her she’s not allowed to walk this way.” I never did find out who his daughter was, but I’m sure those rules worked perfectly.
14. Great Minds Think For Themselves
A woman who came over to our house once was amazed that my younger brother—who was nine at the time—could get dressed by himself and brush his own teeth. She said he was “so mature,” and explained that her daughter, who was also nine, couldn’t do things like that. My mom immediately recognized it as helicopter parenting and had a long talk with her.
I really hope that little girl has learned how to dress herself and handle lots of other basic things by now.
15. Ruining It For Everyone Else
My dad coached my hockey team when I was 10 to 12 years old. He was a great coach, and he was friends with the dads of a lot of my teammates, so he got some of them involved in coaching too. We were in a tiny town, but we kept beating team after team because our coaches genuinely cared about the kids. We had organized practices. We focused on developing skills.
We got better every day. After every game, win or lose, we learned something. During my dad’s last year coaching, there was a kid on the team named Chad. He didn’t want to be there. He was very overweight for a 12-year-old and probably had asthma. He had no real competitive drive and was extremely introverted.
All season long, my dad tried to help him come out of his shell. He worked to improve his skills and hoped he might even learn to enjoy sports. By the end of the season, it was starting to work—but of course, no amount of encouragement is going to make asthma disappear. And there was another issue: Chad’s mother came to every game and every tournament.
She was something else. She never cheered for anyone but her son, and in her mind, her son was clearly the star. At out-of-town tournaments, the Zamboni would come out between periods, and during that break we’d be in the locker room.
Chad’s mom would come in with a burger for him to eat between the first and second periods. Between the second and third periods, she’d bring fries and gravy. Exactly the kind of thing top athletes eat, apparently. She also tracked his playing time.
She brought a notepad and a stopwatch to every game and recorded how long Chad’s shifts were, how often he got passed the puck, and how many power-play or penalty-kill chances he got. It was basically a full statistical breakdown, like he was a professional athlete.
Near the end of the season and during the playoffs, she started cornering my dad in the hallway and unloading on him. My dad was a volunteer coach with two jobs and three sons of his own, and she would lecture him within earshot of the locker room. She complained about Chad’s ice time and showed off the notes she had taken. We all heard it.
Chad looked like he wanted to disappear into his seat. We tried to encourage him, but she humiliated him at every single game. Every single one. And then, at the end of the season, she finally got what she wanted and managed to get my dad removed from his volunteer coaching position. My dad—a former high school and university-level coach—lost that role because her son supposedly wasn’t being treated “equally.”
Sometimes I wonder how that story gets told in Chad’s family. I wonder if my dad is painted as the villain, like in some sports movie. I wonder if Chad is always presented as the hero, and what ever became of him. Did his mother ever stop pushing and controlling everything, or did it continue for the rest of his life? I’ll never know, because he quit hockey and never came back.
Meanwhile, the rest of the team lost three excellent coaches because of one unreasonable parent. Participation trophies are not something kids ask for. They come from adults—usually parents—trying to live through their children.
And then those same people will say, “Back in our day, we didn’t get participation trophies just for showing up...” Of course you didn’t. You were the ones who came up with them in the first place.
16. Joined At The Hip
I went to boarding school for high school, and when I was a senior, there was a freshman whose mom drove three hours every weekend just to see her. But on those weekends, she never actually took her daughter out anywhere. Instead, she would hang around with her daughter and her friends so much that it honestly seemed like she thought she was part of the friend group.
Field trips? She went. Band tours? She made sure she showed up at every single performance.
She also tried to give her daughter extra homework on top of all her schoolwork, and it only stopped when a dean found out and told her off. I went back for alumni weekend this year and stayed at an old staff member’s house. That house happened to be where the graduating class from that year was having a get-together. And sure enough, the girl was there... and so was her mom.
17. Calling You Out
I was a trustee for my college fraternity. During the last week of pledging, the recruits had to live in the fraternity house. We had them hand over their phones for the week, which turned out to be a huge mistake. On the second day, campus officers came knocking on the door looking for one of the recruits. It turned out his mother called him every morning to wake him up for class.
18. Just Let It Go
My mother is unbelievable. She creates fake Facebook accounts using other people’s names—like her financial advisor’s—just to see if she can access my Facebook page. I’m 38. A few years ago when I was married, she would scold me if I went anywhere—the grocery store, dinner with my own friends—without my husband. And the wild thing is, my mom is extremely independent herself.
There’s a family story she denies: somehow, she managed to get through to my college president on the phone and told him, “My daughter was a good Christian girl until she went to YOUR school.” I went to a Christian college, and honestly, I have no doubt this “story” is true. It sounds exactly like something she would do. In high school, I was barely allowed to walk the four to six blocks to school. But there was a catch.
Students were never allowed to use the phone in the school office except in emergencies. Except me. Everyone in town knows my mom and knows what she’s like, and they usually just give in because they choose their battles. So every morning after walking those six blocks to school, I had to call my mom to tell her I’d arrived—I had special permission to use the office phone.
One morning I forgot. She called the principal, who then got on the classroom intercom and asked if I was in class, because my mom was on the phone wondering whether I had made it the six blocks to school. In the entire 18 years I lived with my parents, I spent exactly one night home alone. I was never allowed to be by myself. Truly never.
Even as a teenager, on the rare nights when both of my parents were gone overnight, I still had to have a babysitter. One of them was my mom’s former best friend, who once made me sleep on her neighbor’s pool deck and then took pictures of me the next morning waking up in my sleeping bag, half asleep. This same woman was also strangely obsessed with clowns. Thanks, Mom.
Public domain pictures
19. Lies, Lies, And More Lies
I had a friend in college whose mom was constantly overly concerned about where she was. Honestly, it was getting close to controlling behavior, and I don’t think she was entirely well. She would randomly show up and take my friend home while we were out, and when she went away, she would monitor the house’s water, gas, and electricity use to figure out whether my friend had stayed out or had people over.
Her mom saw how laid-back my own mom was about my life and immediately seemed to dislike both of us. One time we got tickets to a music festival in the city—you know, the kind where a bunch of bars and venues all host daytime performances. There was one act I really, really wanted to see, and it was the final one of the night.
So I spent most of the day wandering around town, drinking a bit, and going to the acts my friend wanted to see. I was having fun, but I was also definitely counting down the hours until I could finally see the band I’d really bought my ticket for. We were planning to meet up with some other friends there and had everything arranged... until my phone inconveniently died during the act before, at another venue across town.
My friend’s mom, of course, knew exactly which acts we planned to see and where we’d be. Keep in mind, we were adults, this was during the day, and it was basically our home city. About half an hour before we were supposed to leave for the band I’d been waiting all day to see, my friend’s mom called and said she had checked online and the final venue was overcrowded.
She said they were turning people away at the door, so she was coming to get us and take us home immediately. I didn’t question it, and since I was staying with their family, I wasn’t about to turn down my ride. I was disappointed because I’d spent a decent amount of money—at least for me—to see one of my favorite bands for the first time, and now I wasn’t going to get the chance. Still, I’d had a good day, so I wasn’t completely upset.
Anyway, we got back to her house. I grabbed my charger, got my phone working again, and the texts I saw made me furious. A few messages came through from the friends we were supposed to meet at the final venue. Apparently the place wasn’t crowded at all, and we had missed an amazing set.
It was incredibly strange, but I decided not to confront her even though I was upset—not just because I missed a great show for no reason, but also because I’d wasted all that money. It’s one thing to be overly controlling with your own adult child, but doing the same thing to your child’s adult friends is on another level. I really do not like that woman.
20. Thanks But No Thanks
My sister was friends in middle school with a girl whose mom would put her tampons in for her because she was afraid her daughter wouldn’t do it correctly. Tampons—not pads, though that wouldn’t have been normal either. My sister was at a sleepover once, and before bed the girl told her mom she needed her tampon changed. The whole thing was deeply strange.
21. Mommy’s Little Girl
Back in the ’90s, there was this popular girl in about fifth grade who got dropped off and picked up by her mom every day. That part was normal. But several times a week, her mom would slowly drive past the school during recess, park on a gravel road about 200 meters from the playground, and just sit there watching. Maybe she didn’t work or had extra time, but it felt really unsettling.
This girl also got frequent phone calls from her mom through the school office, since this was before cell phones. It happened multiple times a week, and I never understood what was going on there.
22. I’m An Adult Now
I was supposed to move into a dorm with a friend, but her mother got in touch with the administration and insisted her daughter be placed in the same residence as the dorm supervisor so someone could make sure she did her homework and stayed away from parties. We were 20, and where we lived, the legal drinking age was 18. So really, none of that was this woman’s business, or the dorm supervisor’s.
Her mother would also show up after seminars to walk her home, even though it was only 10 minutes away, and she’d email professors asking for extensions or arguing about grades. What I didn’t know at the time was that my friend had a serious history of mental illness, so there were real reasons to worry about her safety.
Even so, I couldn’t help thinking that a lot of her struggles came from constantly being told she couldn’t be trusted to handle life on her own.
23. Don’t Worry, Mommy’s Here
My brother was hurt in a training accident in the Israeli army. It wasn’t life-threatening, but it was a serious injury that needed immediate treatment. For some reason, the base commander tried to keep it quiet and refused to send him to the hospital. Instead, he was sent to the camp medic, who took one look at him and said, “Here, take some morphine, and I’m calling for help.”
My brother asked the medic to call my mom. At the time, she was a colonel. She somehow took control of a helicopter, brought along a squad of men, flew into Lebanon where my brother was stationed, landed right in the middle of the base, pushed her way into the medical tent while posting guards outside, loaded my brother into the helicopter, and flew him out.
To be fair, she’s usually a great mom who lets us make our own mistakes, but if you want an example of helicopter parenting, it really doesn’t get more literal than taking a helicopter to rescue your son.
24. Can I Speak To A Manager?
More than once, I’ve had to tell overbearing moms that they needed to wait in the lobby while I interviewed their child for a job. If your kid is 18, they’re legally an adult, and you have absolutely no right to sit in on that interview.
About 30% of them tried to pressure me like I was their child or spouse, but backed off when they realized it wouldn’t work. Around 60% threw such dramatic fits that their child lost the job. And the remaining 10% tried to get me fired.
25. All Seeing, All Knowing
My girlfriend’s mother is incredibly controlling. My girlfriend will be 22 in a few months, but her mom still monitors her bank account and credit card purchases. She also checks her cell phone records and asks why she’s spending so long on calls with a certain number, which is obviously mine. I’m sure it doesn’t help that my girlfriend and I have been secretly dating for about a year and a half.
26. Somebody’s Always Watching
When my sister was a kid, she had a friend she visited all the time. The friend lived in a really nice, quiet neighborhood, and my sister would often go over there just to hang out. One day, after spending time at her friend’s house, she came home and told me that her friend’s parents had put cameras in her bedroom.
The camera even had a microphone, so they could not only hear everything happening in the room, but also talk to the child through it. My sister would come home with stories about the mom speaking into the room to tell them to stop doing something or to quiet down a little.
THIS WOMAN WAS WATCHING EVERYTHING THEY DID AND LISTENING TO EVERY CONVERSATION. I honestly felt bad for that girl. To me, that’s a massive invasion of privacy, and just really unsettling in general. If it had been me, I would have wanted to throw every camera in that room right out the window. Or maybe at the mom. Either one.
27. Family Comes First
I have a friend whose parents make her drive an hour from her university back to their house four times a week just so they can “keep an eye on her.” And that’s not even the worst part. She’s incredibly busy. She works three jobs—because her parents refuse to help with tuition, not because they can’t—she’s the president of a club, and she’s taking the hardest class in her major this term. They still don’t care.
28. Going The Distance
My mother got me removed from the Army after she found out I was heading into a role where I might eventually see combat. The extent of what she did was unbelievable. She contacted two Senators and kept pushing through the chain of command until she reached my commanding officer. Apparently she irritated my CO so much that I got “special attention” afterward.
I spent three months in the reception battalion—the first stop before boot camp—wearing a Line of Sight vest. It was pink, covered in reflective tape, and usually meant for people considered flight risks or at risk of self-harm. After just a 15-minute meeting with a psychologist, I was diagnosed with Major Depressive Disorder and given an Entry Level Separation discharge.
On my last day, my CO reviewed my paperwork and tore it up so I wouldn’t be able to re-enlist. My family had served continuously for five generations before me. I was 18 years old at the time.
29. Can’t Let Go And Can’t Relax
Mine. My mother was awful. I was 20 years old and still wasn’t allowed to leave the house without her, and I had to hold her hand when crossing the street. I never had a job, and I never learned how to cook, because she always said I was going to live with her forever. Then I got a boyfriend, even though I had never been allowed to visit anyone else’s house. Ever.
She demanded to see his social security number and birth certificate to prove he was really the age he claimed to be. When I told her I wanted to move out, she completely lost it. She called the authorities and said I was mentally unstable, that I wasn’t prepared for the outside world, and every other lie she could think of. Sadly, they believed her, and it took me a full year to finally get away.
She even had relatives sit outside at night to make sure I didn’t leave. I’m 23 now and still slowly learning how to live in the world, but it’s hard. I can cook now, but driving is difficult. I don’t have social skills. I still don’t really know how to talk to people. And she still texts me every day asking me to come home.
30. The Apple Doesn’t Fall Far
My cousin wasn’t allowed to watch Arthur on PBS. I still don’t remember why, but honestly, there’s no way there was a reasonable explanation for it. And it didn’t stop there. She also wasn’t allowed to watch most Disney Channel shows because the kids on them could be a little disrespectful to their parents sometimes. I mean, I can understand that observation, but usually those shows teach a lesson by the end, right?
I watched those shows and didn’t turn into a jerk toward my parents, and neither did most kids. She also wasn’t allowed to listen to any secular music until she was about 15 or 16, and even then her parents were extremely strict about it. When she was a baby, her mom even objected to baby photos that showed her backside—or, if it was a girl baby, her chest—because she was worried some creep might somehow see them.
When my cousin was around 11 or 12, she had a celebrity crush on Josh Hutcherson, but apparently at some point he said something suggesting he was bi, and that was the end of that. And just to top it all off, whenever I visited, her mom would try to parent me too. I remember one time she made me take medicine when I was only feeling slightly sick.
She also made me do chores I didn’t normally have to do at home, and then told me I needed to get better at washing dishes if I wanted to be a good wife someday. Seriously. Then she followed that up by telling me I was putting too much effort into getting an education and that it wouldn’t help me be a good wife either. Great times, right?
31. Two Parents, Two Problems
A guy I know is 23, adopted, and has two moms. Honestly, I’m not sure which one is more controlling. One of them even runs all of his social media accounts. Sometimes “he” would send us messages that sounded really off, and when we asked him about them later, he had no clue what we were talking about. He has a phone that can only call his parents and 9-1-1, and he’s not allowed to drive.
Whenever he goes somewhere new, one of his moms goes with him for the first few hours to “check it out.” He can only eat at certain restaurants, and he has to check in with them constantly. The wild part is that he doesn’t seem to think any of this is strange. Honestly, it feels kind of unhealthy. He’s not used to thinking for himself and depends on other people to make decisions for him. He’s smart, though.
32. Entitlement Breeds Entitlement
This overgrown kid got fired from our workplace, and then his mom called the operations manager to complain that it was unfair. She even went to the Vice President of North America at this big company to accuse the manager of being unreasonable. The only reason this guy got hired in the first place was because he lived next door to that VP at this large international company.
At work, he did whatever he wanted because people were nervous about firing him. Eventually, my boss gave up a small contract just to get rid of him—the guy had already messed it up, and there wasn’t space for him on the other local projects, so he got sent back to the regional office. Then he decided not to come to work for a week because he wanted to stay home and play a newly released Call of Duty game.
The operations manager told him he’d better have a good excuse, and what happened next had all of us laughing. He brought in a note from his mom. And yes, he got fired. After that, his mom tore into the operations manager, claiming her son was being unfairly singled out, and then she went after her neighbor—the VP—at the company Christmas party too.
33. Don’t Step A Foot Out Of Line
I’m 18, and my parents make me use an app that tracks my location and how fast I’m going in vehicles and things like that. I’m also in college, about three hours away from home. One night around 8 p.m., I decided to walk to the lake right across the street from campus to take some pictures. It was maybe a two-minute walk, so obviously I didn’t think it was a big deal.
The second I stepped across the street, I got a text from my mom asking what I was doing. Stuff like that happens all the time. Great. Definitely not unsettling at all to realize you were watching my location that closely at that exact moment. Honestly, things like this are a big reason I have such bad anxiety. At this point, I spoof my location all the time because it feels completely unnecessary for them to ask where I’m going or what I’m doing every time I leave my room.
34. Hurting More Than Helping
A few years ago, we were hiring for an entry-level help desk job. A nice young guy came in with his mom. I politely offered her something to drink and a place to sit away from the interview area. She was definitely not invited into the interview itself. But she started getting really aggressive about being in the room, and the poor guy looked completely embarrassed.
In the end, I told them he was no longer being considered for the job, and she completely lost it. Our receptionist called the authorities, and they showed up within a minute. She calmed down a bit once the officers arrived, almost like this wasn’t her first time dealing with something like that. They politely escorted her off the property, and thankfully we never heard from her again.
35. Make It Make Sense
I work at a college, and we deal with helicopter parents all the time. I think my favorite example was a mother who called every single day to tell us how to do our jobs and run through long lists of complaints, including how we don’t treat students like adults and how we coddle them. Right.
At the very same time, she was asking me to share private information about her son’s health care and his records with the college. She also wouldn’t let him speak to me himself because, according to her, he was “just a kid” and she would handle it. So, that was pretty telling.
36. Get A Hold Of Yourself
I was a soccer referee when I was a tween and teenager. At first, I only worked U-6 and U-8 games. Yes, my association actually used referees for those age groups, even though they didn’t use line judges for them. Anyway, one cold, windy day in November, I was reffing a U-8 game. The wind was so loud I could barely hear, and the rain and crowd noise didn’t help.
One of the kids behind me tripped and fell. He started crying, but it was quiet enough that the wind carried the sound away. None of the players noticed, none of the coaches noticed, and I didn’t notice either. I ended up paying for that mistake. The kid’s dad got furious and ran onto the field yelling.
I only heard him when he got a couple of yards away, and I turned just in time to have him shove me to the ground. Then he stood over me, still yelling. I was 12. I reported it to the league’s referee coordinator, but as far as I know, nothing ever happened. If a player had acted like that, they’d have been flagged and suspended the next game.
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37. Who Will Think Of The Children?
I was a non-traditional, older student when I started college. I was 24 as a freshman, not ancient, but definitely older than most. I wanted the full college experience, so I ended up in a dorm and, unfortunately, in a triple room. Fine, I thought, I’m trying college and this is part of the deal. Besides, I could always move to an apartment the next year.
Except no. One of the other students’ moms called the admissions office to complain about me living in the dorm. She claimed I’d buy her kid alcohol, even though I didn’t even drink at the time. In the end, I got moved into an on-campus apartment because of her. The wildest part was that I was leaving for work while they were moving in, and she seemed proud that she’d gotten me kicked out of the dorm.
Meanwhile, her kid looked completely embarrassed. I just said, “Oh, thanks, sorry, but I have to go to work.” You know, like a responsible adult. She looked a little awkward after that.
38. Not Very Thankful Right Now
One time in high school band, we were supposed to travel north to perform in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. Naturally, we were going to stay several nights in a hotel, with four students to a room. My mom then had the brilliant idea of coming along and staying in the same room with me and two other 17-year-old boys.
Thankfully, my dad talked her out of it, but she still insisted that I text her every day of the trip.
39. Some Un-Motherly Advice
My ex-boyfriend’s mother was so controlling with her own son that she eventually tried to control me too. It escalated quickly. At one point, she told me to quit my part-time job because I was “a woman and it’s dangerous out there.” She also tried to stop me from pursuing music and pushed me to go to graduate school with her son instead.
One night at dinner, she sat me down and told me to choose between work and family, then just waited for my answer. I was 23, he was 25, and we had only been dating for seven months. I can’t say she wasn’t part of the reason we broke up.
40. My Mom Said I Could Do It
Stories from the classroom: First, there was the time a parent argued with me after their child cheated. Their reasoning? They said it was fine because I hadn’t specifically said that copying homework counted as cheating. Second, and related: there was the time a parent very clearly wrote their child’s entire essay. Parents, let your kids fail and learn. There really isn’t another way.
41. Fail Harder
My mom was the definition of a helicopter parent, and on top of that, she was deeply self-centered. A few examples: We lived in a tiny town with maybe 500 people. There was a gas station directly across the street from our house, but I wasn’t allowed to cross the road by myself until I was 14 because I might get hit by one of the three cars that passed each day.
I wasn’t allowed to ride a bike at all until I was 12. And even then, I had training wheels forever and wasn’t allowed to leave the driveway. So there I was, 12 years old, just puttering around the driveway on training wheels. I wish that were the worst part, but it wasn’t. Anything I wanted to try, I was allowed to do once, and then when I predictably struggled, it became, “See? I told you that would happen.”
Roller skating: once. Of course I fell. She said she knew I wasn’t coordinated enough. Swim lessons: once. She said she knew I wasn’t strong enough. Track: one practice. She said she knew I wasn’t tall enough. And it went on like that. On the rare occasions I was allowed out of the house, she either came with me or showed up wherever I was.
Somehow, when I was 16, she let me get a job at a burger place... and then sat there for my entire shift. She chaperoned every single school trip. The good news is that I turned out mostly okay. I’m a fairly functional adult and not scared of everything. The one thing that stayed with me, though, is the belief that I’ll fail at anything I try. I still haven’t been able to shake that.
42. The Sunday Scaries
My ex’s helicopter mom once panicked and left more and more tearful messages on the answering machine every few minutes for over two hours. Why? Because he wasn’t home to take her usual Sunday call, so in her mind, something had to be terribly wrong. He was 36.
If he had always been home for that call, I might have understood her a little more. But he wasn’t regularly home at that time, and he had never said he would be.
43. Driving Me Crazy
My parents, especially my mom, have serious control issues. During winter break of my sophomore year in college, I was back home and spending time at a friend’s house just a street or two away. At 10 p.m., my parents called and told me to come home. Fine, whatever. I didn’t have a curfew, so I thought I was okay, but I wasn’t going to argue.
I wanted to stay longer, but I knew if I pushed back, they’d probably stop me from going out for the rest of break. On top of that, they refused to go to sleep until I got home, and I wanted them to get some rest for their own sake. But then they started panicking because it was supposedly too dark and unsafe outside.
So apparently I couldn’t be trusted to walk the short distance to my car and make the one-minute drive home. Keep in mind, both my friend and I lived in fairly wealthy, safe neighborhoods, and the streets were well lit. Still, my parents called my friend’s parents and asked them to follow me for the entire one-minute drive home. I basically had an escort parade for a trip that lasted less than sixty seconds.
And of course, everyone else had to be inconvenienced too. Thankfully, I go to college in another state now and can mostly ignore them, but going home is always miserable. If living costs weren’t so high, I’m pretty sure my parents would have moved to my college town by now.
44. All’s Well That Ends Well?
My best friend in college had a helicopter mom, and it had some pretty sad effects on him. We shared an apartment, which is how I got to know him well. Up through finishing his undergraduate degree, he had never really stepped outside the life his mom planned for him. Some of the things I saw were honestly shocking.
For example, he couldn’t fold clothes, not even badly. He didn’t even realize he sometimes wore his socks inside out. He didn’t know his clothing size or shoe size. His mom picked out all of his clothes for him, including underwear. Around graduation, I saw him get boxes from her filled with outfits for job interviews.
She also chose his car—brand, model, color, everything—and then he just went and bought it. Same with his phone and other electronics. He couldn’t cook at all. We actually had to ban him from using the stove after he set off the fire alarm three times trying to make dinner.
We all wondered how he would manage once he had a job and lived on his own. As it turns out, his mom had a plan for that too. She found someone for him to marry. His wife stays home and handles the cooking, cleaning, laundry, and everything else. The thing is, he’s genuinely a nice person and not arrogant at all. His wife is great too. He works at a large company, makes very good money, and now they have two kids.
So overall, he’s doing well, and he and his wife seem genuinely happy together. Still, I’m not sure he realizes how much of life he never got the chance to learn for himself.
45. It’s In The Air
I once watched a mother walk into a classroom carrying a handheld radiation meter. That pretty quickly made it clear she was way out there. She told the teacher that little Billy needed to sit in the back corner of the room because of the “toxic” radiation from the school’s Wi-Fi.
The irony is that visible light is technically radiation too.
Maybe she’ll head back to wherever she came from—preferably with the lights off.
46. Not Giving Up Gracefully
I work in HR at a large telecommunications company. We usually sit in the conference room and can see and hear the interview candidates while they wait in the lobby. One young man, probably 19 or 20, showed up with his mother, and she wanted to go into the interview with him. We actually had to ask her to wait outside the lobby because, even after being told to sit down, she insisted it was her “right” to be there.
He didn’t get the job, and afterward she called to ask where she could send an appeal letter. I really wish I had kept that letter, because it was something else.
47. He Shoots, They Scream
You haven’t seen anything until you’ve seen extreme hockey parents. They don’t just hover over their own kids; they also encourage terrible sportsmanship. A few years ago, when my brother was a goalie playing Squirt AA hockey (so around age 9 or 10), the other team kept using the old, questionable strategy of “run the goalie.”
The coaches were part of it, the parents cheered wildly every time these kids slammed into my brother, and they did it more often than they actually tried to score. Eventually, my brother had enough. The poor kid snapped and shoved the next boy who slid into his crease (the net area), which honestly felt understandable at that point.
Right away, this rough-looking woman and her husband jumped up and started screaming about their “poor precious Joey” and yelling, “Get that goalie out of there, ref!” Before long, their whole group was standing and shouting disgusting things about hurting my brother. A bunch of adults, yelling that at 10-year-olds. Security ended up escorting them all out. You really can’t make this stuff up.
48. The Girl In The Bubble
I wasn’t allowed to walk to school by myself, even though it was literally only one block from my house, because my mom said I would get attacked. I was in junior high. I was never allowed to be on my own, and I couldn’t go to friends’ houses because my parents didn’t trust other parents. That continued all the way through high school.
Eventually I started “acting out,” and they sent me to a locked mental health treatment facility. My childhood was painfully lonely, to say the least.
49. A Steep Cost
This is a sad story, but it really shows how unreasonable over-parenting can be. When I was 12, about 10 years ago, a good friend of mine lived across the street from a family with two young boys. Their parents were always extremely overprotective. The mother would stand outside while her kids played, even when they were 9 and 10, and as long as I can remember they weren’t even allowed to cross the street by themselves.
Finally, the older boy was allowed to walk across the street alone to play with a friend. It ended in tragedy. On the very first day he walked out into the street by himself, he was hit by an oncoming car and died instantly. His parents had always held his hand while crossing and never taught him basic street safety, like looking both ways.
It’s awful that some parents try to do everything for their kids instead of teaching them how to do things safely on their own.
50. Helicopter Hilda Always Gets Her Way
I drive a school bus. At one stop last week, one of the kids was late, but I could see him coming out of his house about 200 meters away. His mom was carefully zipping his coat, adjusting his backpack, and then I watched him slowly make his way across the playground toward the bus. I was holding up traffic, so I put away the stop signal, closed the door, and moved forward a few car lengths so traffic could continue.
Then I opened the door and called out for him to hurry up. By the time I finished my route, about 12 minutes later, I parked at the school. I couldn’t believe what I saw. His mom was there waiting in the parking lot. It was freezing that morning, but her ski jacket was wide open, and she was wearing a very low-cut shirt underneath.
Her pupils were huge, like she had just come from an eye doctor appointment. She was yelling, swearing, and hitting the side of my bus. She kept demanding to know how I dared rush her son and threaten to drive away. I filed an incident report. The school, my manager, and my union steward all sided with the mom. I asked them to add three minutes to that stop on my route sheet.
They still haven’t. But now Helicopter Hilda gets her way.
