OK. My first reaction to the story was, "she really did baby him a little too much, but I know it's hard not to"... Then, I started reading the posts and now all I can think, is "did I miss something"?

Folks, calm down and back off. This woman is not evil or insane or any of the other awful words being used in the comments... She's a self-admitted "hover-er"... (she uses the supposedly "healthy" term "alpha mom", but that's just a cover-up for the fact that she was probably a bit of a control freak.)

As a society, we place WAAAAAY too much pressure on kids to grow up immediately. My son is 7 and already, he's been told at school that "playtime is over, it's time to work and get things right the first time." I kid you not- this boy is in 1st grade and is basically being told to put his head down and get to work. I'm fighting this direction as best I can while trying to encourage a love of learning, but when little kids are pressured like this only two outcomes are possible: they become type-A overacheivers, making good grades and saying and doing everything right until they shock everyone they know by admiting an eating disorder or cutting themselves or committing suicide; or they feel they'll never measure up, so they stop trying and fail out...

I currently live in Germany, so homeschooling is out of the question (it's illegal here!) and since we only speak English, our choices for schools are limited by geography and cost (international schools can cost as much as college and we're on a "local contract", I.e., no perks...)

If this lady can afford to pay for her (20 year old?) son to live off her a while longer, what's the big deal? Some of the other comments say that he's too old to be mooching off his parents... are you kidding? I've known lots of kids who gradutated highschool at 18, went directly to college, got the degree they thought they were supposed to get (M.D., Esq., PhD, etc) and then realized they really wanted to be artists or writers or, in one case, a farmer...

I could go on and on but I've got a dinner to make and homework to help with...7 years old and he's got about 2 hours of homework ahead of him...

Ugh.

If a kid is to accomplish anything in this life, he has to learn two things.

1. To get the things you want, you have to work. That means spending large amounts of time doing things you'd rather not be doing.

2. If you don't thing through the long term consequences of your actions, they'll come back and bite you.

When I was 7, my parents bought me an alarm clock and quit making my lunch. I never saw them in the morning again. If I didn't sent my alarm, get up, make my breakfast and lunch, and get myself to school on time, I had to deal with the consequences. That meant going hungry when lunch was forgotten and detention when I was late or forgot my homework. This may seem cruel to you, but I was a lot more prepared for the real world than most folks my age.

Giving kids things instead of giving them an opportunity to earn them makes them lazy. Making excuses rather than letting a kid deal with the consequences keeps a child from taking responsibility for his actions and thinking through the long term consequences of his actions. Giving a kid an apartment in San Francisco for flunking out of school won't teach him to be independent and self reliant. It only teaches him to be a whiny moocher who will always blame others for his failures. I'm suddenly reminded of that Eagles song "Get over it."

CMS - How old are you? 60? Parents don't expect their kids to go work in the factories when they are 10 years old anymore. The society has evolved to realize that little kids shouldn't be treated like adults.

Basically your parents told you, at 7 years old, we don't want to take care of you anymore, do it yourself. What a lonely life you must have had, every morning, alone. My kids got their own cereal and milk in the morning, but at least I was there to make sure they had a healthy lunch, and to give them a hug before they got on the school bus. Doesn't sound like there was very much love in your childhood.

I too had to wake up by myself when I was seven and make my own lunch, and I did not have my parent there for me because she was working to support herself and her kids! Not being there every waking moment for you child is not bad parenting. It made me be more self-sufficient, and I know I would never have been like the 19 year old lazy ass who is sucking his parents dry. (although I do not feel bad for the mother, because she is enabling him. he should take her for all she is worth) I did not have parents who were there all the time, but they were not bad parents for being absent!

Well said B B!

Kids learn very early what each parent's limit is, and will never stop at less than what they are fully able to get from each one. As soon as the "freebies" stop, they learn to take care of things themselves. Most of the time they already know how to do this, but there isn't any need as long as someone else is willing to do it for them.

The problem with this woman is that she's not allowing her son to develop for her own selfish reasons. In the end her son (and his family) will pay the price . She's more interested in being loved by her son than she is in loving her son. There's a big difference between aiding a child who will use that help to get further ahead than he could do on his own and a child who feels entitlement and uses the help from others so he doesn't have to do any work.

And while I agree that school policies on homework etc. are ridiculous, they have nothing to do with trying to make kids grow up. Those policies are designed to improve test scores and academic achievement, which has little to do with becoming a responsible adult.

Bookgirl - Wow, I'm really impressed by how quickly and smoothly you wield the "ad hominem" machete -- that's swinging into an attack on the person when it becomes clear that an attack on the argument will fail, and it's a fallacy, a flaw in logic, a signal that the writer has lost. You accuse CMS of being ancient (presumably you are one of those who believes anyone over 30 must be a retarded poopy-head), unloved and lonely as a child (whereas you, no doubt, were pampered and babied and told you were special and never, ever had to do anything you didn't want to do), and then you triumphantly exclaim as a closer: "Doesn't sound like there was very much love in your childhood." Wow. Impressive. From all this pap, I infer that love for you means spoilage, irresponsibility, and NEVER accepting the silly little idea that other peoples' experiences may be just as valid and affirming for them as yours were for you. I'll bet your secret motto is "I exist, therefore I condemn."

See, but that's the logical fallacy here. You're equating the ridiculous trend of privileged America towards over-scheduling and over burdening their very young children, to prepare them for their impending high-achieving corporate careers, to simply never teaching a young man any degree of independence.

Pressuring our children to become "Type-A Overachievers" should not be confused for forcing them to grow up too fast. It's just forcing them to grow up under a conceptual framework that treasures the micromanaged productivity of a high-earning capitalist system. In reality, it isn't fostering any sort of independence. In reality, it's actually creating dependence on the maintenance of class structure. Do you thing seven year old children attending public school in low-income communities are receiving the same sort of pressuring to succeed that you're child is? I assure you, this is not the case.

With that said, what you're describing with your child is not the same as the general complaints individuals responding to this article has voiced regarding the parenting of this young man. And this isn't simply a mother loosening the straps of modern social pressures, the constant drive to produce and succeed, and allowing her son to progress at his own imperfect rate. This is hand-holding of an extreme and frankly, counterproductive kind. If most of our intellectual development occurs during these formative young adult years, how is this young man expected to develop into a responsible individual with such massive amounts of coddling? That is the real complaint here, the point you've simply missed. It's not about pressure to succeed, its simply about the complete lack of pressure this parent has placed on her child to survive.

I think the mom's biggest mistake is not taking the hint when her lazy son didn't take any interest in filling out his college applications. My 'neglectful' mother never would have pushed me out the door like this just to keep up appearances. If I didn't get my paperwork in on time, I would have lived with the consequences, which would mean spending the next year flipping burgers, living at home and watching the world pass me by--something this son desparately needed. She also never would have rewarded laziness by basically sending me on vacation in San Francisco. Does anybody here really think this kid is going to study that much?

I really dont think that you should generalize the upbringing of certain more privileged kids by saying that giving them things makes them lazy and irresponsible. Growing up in my parents house, we were pretty well off. My parents gave my sister and i everything that we could have asked for and more, but when we would do bad in school or get in trouble those luxuries that we were given were quickly taken away until we could prove that we deserved to have them back by doing better in school or whatever it was our parents wanted us to do. Not everyone who grows up in a rich household ends up like this woman's son. My parents taught me the importance of being able to to earn your own way in the world and to this day i would rather go hungry than ask my parents for money because i think its more important now (as a college student) to earn what i have and be proud of myself as opposed to running home to my parents everytime my bank account drops below 20 dollars.