Bonnie Goldstein's story illustrate a really important part of being a mom: knowing when to do nothing. Bravo for letting your son spread his wings on his own.

Doing nothing?! She is practically breastfeeding him! I moved out at 18, and though it got really rough (illness, poverty, losing my car) during the 5 years until I really "got on my feet" I called my parents for money twice. She is still buying his groceries and doing his clerical work!

Freki

By the way, I am not the strictly-raised child of high-powered executives or anything. I was raised in a hippie-dippy pot smoking family, never spanked, and allowed to skip school if I wanted. I still managed to pull a B average, get my own self into college, get a crappy apartment, get a job, and learn how to take care of myself. My parents just had the wisdom to butt out unless I called and ASKED for their help. This kid is giving his mother a hard time for not paying his rent in the manner that he would prefer! Sheesh.

Yeah, I agree. Her son sounds really spoiled.

Seriously. My parents paid my way through college, and I started at 17, but I did EVERYTHING else - I found a place to live - even filled out the application all by myself, in ink - I found a job, I arranged my own study abroad with a student loan - all they did was write the checks. (for which I will be forever grateful!!) My mother would have looked at me like I was insane if I had asked her to fill out my college applications, and her response would have been, "if you want to go to college get out your pen and do it yourself."

There is a point where you are NOT helping your kid, you are handicapping them. I know a woman, 34 years old, whose parents still supports her completely - they pay her rent, pay their grandson's daycare and their granddaughter's school fees, pay the kids' health insurance, take them grocery shopping once a week. They have done this since her daughter was about 18. As a result, the adult daughter is an absolutely worthless human being who contributes NOTHING to the world, and all three of them share the blame.

Wow. I almost can't believe this isn't SATIRE of affluent Boomer helicopter parents and their pathetically spoiled children. I kept reading and waiting for the punchline! But it was earnest the whole time!

Don't get me wrong, I was a spoiled kid. I didn't have any regular chores to speak of, no curfews, no controls on what I could or couldn't wear, I was allowed to drink, go out with boys, the whole nine yards. I just somehow absorbed the message that adulthood and independence meant I was responsible for myself.

Perhaps it was just a personality thing. I was (according to my parents) one of those toddlers whose favourite phrase was "NO! I do it!"

Freki

Nah, I changed my mind, it's not the personality of the kid, she was an incompetent mother. Hell, this is an anonymous forum, I can be as judgemental as I want!

LOL, no kidding. And having attended the University of Wisconsin from '94 through '02, I can assure both mom and son that if you can't make friends there, you can't make them anywhere. The place is a liberal friggin' wonderland, it is hands-down the most accepting town I have ever seen. There are 40,000 students on the campus, from all over the country and the world. I'm about as taciturn and distant a person as can be, and I ALWAYS had a large group of friends there, from almost the minute I arrived (the weekend after my HS graduation). Of course, I also paid 100% of my tuition and expenses and thus made a good many of said friends through MY JOB (J.O.B.-JOB, mom, JOB.....two degrees despite 20-30 hrs/wk proves it's possible), so I guess that explains a bit of the disparity.

As someone who's still paying off tens of thousands of dollars for two degrees, and suffered like hell to get those two degrees thanks to absentee parents, I should hate this kid and his mom. I should envy them like crazy.

But I don't. I actually like that there are parents who care this much about their children. He doesn't have to subsist on a half-pack of cream cheese the way I did for a particularly three days in 1988 when my financial aid check was late, but then again, I don't want him to. It sucked. The only life lesson l learned from undergrad was that life is hard, and you need to take care of your kids. The kid won't have a more or less valuable experience than I did, just a different one. I just hope that when my kid gets to college (four years, I hope) I can do a better job than my parents did. That's really the point.

All of my poor brethren who got all "self reliant" through their horrible college years (which 70 percent of the world would kill to have)... let's all just take a deep breath.

I was waiting for the punchline too! Good grief - I thought I was lucky because my parents paid for my tuition at a school 90 minutes from home where I could live with my grandparents, working part time jobs to pay for any extra expenses. As a matter of fact, I WAS lucky. I know people in their 30's who are still paying off student loans.

This sounds mean but I don't think I'd like this kid very much. Overindulged, intellectually-blessed kids with expense accounts seem pretty cool in high school, even college. But they turn into bores once they become adults and can't pull their own weight at work, in their marriages, etc. I can almost feel sorry for him. Almost. Let's not blame the mom completely. Young people (dogs, hamsters, etc.) are supposed to possess an innate need to pull away and take care of themselves. This kid is obviously too lazy to do that. How sad for all concerned.