Move Over Heli-Parents, We Now Have Snowplow-Parents

[chitownxo]

My mom is the Chairperson of the Nursing Department at a local university. She got a call from the mother of one of her graduate students complaining that the 7:00 clinical time was way to early for her precious princess. My mom declined to move it to 10:00. She also declined to allow mommy dearest to attend clinical with her daughter for moral support.

[OldFLDDD]

Originally Posted by chitownxo

My mom is the Chairperson of the Nursing Department at a local university. She got a call from the mother of one of her graduate students complaining that the 7:00 clinical time was way to early for her precious princess. My mom declined to move it to 10:00. She also declined to allow mommy dearest to attend clinical with her daughter for moral support.

Unreal. A friend of mine is a very "squeaky wheel" parent who is constantly calling teachers trying to get them to make special accommodations for her kids because they're "not ready" to take a test for whatever reason and then complains to me when the teachers won't do it!!! She'll be the same mom calling college professors and employers down the road asking for them to extend deadlines for little Johnny or Susie.

[andthen]

Several years back I worked for an NGO where people had to apply to volunteer in remote and extremely underserved areas across the globe. Part of the application process included a medical exam, basically John or Jane Doe applies answers questions about their health history and if they have any current medical or mental health conditions as people are often placed in very remote areas that if an issue were to occur it might be very difficult if not impossible to provide for their needs in country based on available resources.

Depending on a person's needs we could sometimes accept them because there might be an area where they need a teacher and they have available services to manage Jane's psoriasis. Total hypothetical btw.

My job was to review the medical application and depending on the issue consult with the in house doctor to see if it was feasible to send John to middle of nowhere Africa or Asia.

IRL I had an applicant who had a medical condition (which I honestly don't remember exactly what it was) I want to say it was a issue with asthma or something along those lines. So after review and getting more info from the person and consulting with the doctors it was decided that John couldn't be medically cleared. John was upset I told him he could submit additional medical info and appeal his decision.

I then proceeded to tell him step by step what he needed to do etc. Well not an hour later I get an angry call from his mom! My first thought is you've got to be kidding me. She goes into this who thing about how her precious Johnny is fine, she doesn't understand why he didn't meet the medical criteria etc. I then had to explain that I had a conversation with her precious baby boy on what he needed to do in order to appeal, and once we receive the info we'll re-review his info and determine if the original decision should be overturned.

For a kid who basically had to figure stuff out herself, deal with consequences of not getting a great grade, or getting that job never, ever, ever would my parents have considered in the least calling a teacher, professor, or employer to plea as to why andthen is so great. My parents would say 1. you need to study more, or 2. it wasn't meant to be, end of story and no more discussion.