Helicopter Parents Invading the MBA Schools Now Too
There is no doubt that parents of every generation have been concerned about their children and have wanted their children to succeed. But what happens when you take probably the most career-focused generation in history – Baby Boomers – and turn them into parents? You get parents who hover over their children so continually that sociologists have begun to refer to these Boomers as helicopter parents.
As a Gen X’er, I understand but don’t condone this type of behavior. I understand that these parents have raised highly programmed, multi-tasking kids. I get that these parents are used to running their kids from one after school activity to another to another. And I even get that some of these parents have a hard time letting go when little Johnny or Jenny move away to attend a great college. But after four or five years of living away from home and hopefully entering the workforce, John and Jennifer are no longer kids. They’re adults. So you’d think that by the time John and Jennifer have chosen to go back to school for an MBA that their parents will also have grown up and realized how destructive their hovering can be. Well, you’d have figured wrong.
The MBA schools are, like employers, flabbergasted by the inability or unwillingness of these parents to let go. Parents are going to check out the MBA schools with their adult children and sometimes even without them. Parents are sitting in on the interviews. Kristin Strauss, a first year MBA student at the University of Virginia and a 25 year old Millennial, said that she watched in awe as parents helped their mid-twentysomething to thirtysomething year old children move into their dorms and apartments. “I was kind of surprised…that so many parents had driven down and were shopping at Target with the MBA students to get them set up in their apartments,” she said.
BusinessWeek wrote that some parents even show up at group orientation sessions, welcome receptions, and even sit in on classes. And will it stop there? Not likely. I’ve been hearing from employers that a small number of their Millennial employees are blaming their poor work performance on their parents because, get ready for this, the parents are completing their work assignments.
Source: Campus Career Counselor
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