[SOPi_Jawbreaker]

I don't know if my mom would be considered a helicopter mom, but she was a very controlling mother. She didn't do stuff for me. She made me do it myself. But she had her ideas about how I should live my life, and it was like "This is the college you're going to. This is what you're going to major in." As for joining a sorority, my mom didn't get why I was getting involved in student orgs. She's the stereotypical Chinese mom. She didn't understand why networking and developing leadership skills and learning to work in group setting were important. She would get mad that I wasn't spending all my time studying in library.

She kinda acted like she owned us because she gave birth to us. My freshman year of college, my mom was waitressing at a Korean/Japanese restaurant. The owner asked her if I would be available to help bus tables on New Year's Eve. My mom didn't even ask me if it was ok with me. She told the owner "Oh yeah, she'll do it. I'll make her". I was pissed when she told me. I would have been fine with it if she had asked me first. She, of course, got angry that I was "giving her attitude and being a spoiled brat".

I eventually had to cut her out of my life, for my own sanity. She constantly belittled and invalidated my feelings. When at 19 I told her that I was depressed and suicidal and had been since I was 12, she told me that I was ungrateful for everything she gave me and all the sacrifices she made for me. She told me that I had no right to feel what I felt because I hadn't had the rough childhood she had. She told me that it was because I had too much time on my hands...that if I had to work three jobs like her, I wouldn't have time to think my stupid thoughts. Then she told me that if I really felt my life was so awful, maybe I should just go kill myself. And the bullshit thing was that I had always been there for her. Growing up, I had been her confidante. She would tell me how I was her best friend. And looking back, I think it was unfair of her to be confiding in me about how her marriage was falling apart when I was 14. But I was there for her. I was a good listener. I was a shoulder to cry on. And so it hurt so much that she reacted the way she did and that she wasn't there for me when I had been there for her. And it was so painful to see her being there for her boyfriend and being supportive when he was feeling depressed.

She lives less than 20 miles away from me. I haven't seen or talked to her in more than four years, and I have absolutely no desire to do so ever again.

Sorry for all the rambling and ranting, but I do have a point. For me, I woud define a helicopter mom as someone who wants to have control over every aspect of her child's life and who behaves like what she wants for her kids supercedes what her kids want for their own lives and who acts like her kids are just an extension of herself rather than their own separate persons. I feel like they hold on so tight because they're trying to keep their kids. However, all it's going to do is either hamper your child for life or cause you to lose them forever when they finally get the balls to get out of that bad situation.