Perhaps the most important function of parenthood is to provide children with a happy and comfortable life. This is so they don’t need anything and can develop and just live peacefully and easily. However, many parents do believe that their care for their kids should not end when these kids become adults...
We have told you stories about the so-called ‘helicopter parenting’ more than once or twice, but it turns out that this phenomenon extends to adult children as well. For example, in this story, from user u/Common_Category_269, the parents of a guy in his late twenties exhibited a classic behavioral pattern of helicopter parenting.
More info: Reddit
The author is dating her boyfriend of 2 years—they live together and make decent money—but the only problem is the guy's parents
Image credits: EyeEm / Freepik (not the actual photo)
The guy is 29 years old, but the parents try to insert themselves in his life by hook or crook
Image credits: Common_Category_269
Image credits: freepik / Freepik (not the actual photo)
The parents keep annoying the author in order to make her a kind of 'babysitter' for the adult man who is actually 6 years older than her
Image credits: Common_Category_269
Image credits: katemangostar / Freepik (not the actual photo)
The author used to just brush them off gently, but now she thinks it's time for a harsher reaction
Image credits: Common_Category_269
The woman asked netizens for advice on whether she'd act rightly if she were to put the boyfriend's parents into their place
So, the Original Poster (OP) tells us that she is 23 years old, and for the past two years, she has been dating a guy named "Josh," who's six years older than her. Moreover, they live together, and everything would be just fine, if the boyfriend's parents hadn’t recently bothered our heroine, asking her to get him to do things—in fact, just his daily routine.
For example, they might just call and demand that she make sure Josh goes to the dentist. Or that he renews his ID. It got to the point where the parents might not like the brand of pet food for his cat, and they might ask the original poster to come up with the idea of changing the brand.
But the climax was the parents' demand that the author influence her boyfriend in order to change his job—simply because they didn't think he made enough money. For reference, the OP makes 110k, and Josh makes 70k, so they're just doing fine. Usually, both Josh and our heroine would just brush off such requests and demands, but now, the author feels she has had enough of all this.
Her typical reaction before was to gently but firmly say that Josh was already a big enough boy to cope with all of life's issues on his own, but she strongly believes that it's time for a more forceful response. So, before moving on to a bit more harsh words, our heroine just wanted to ask netizens for some kind of advice and support.
Image credits: mark2eko / Freepik (not the actual photo)
"Helicopter parenting is not a new phenomenon, but very often, unfortunately, parents try to insert themselves into their children’s lives when they’re adults already," says Maria Kryvosheeva, a psychologist and NLP coach, with whom Bored Panda got in touch for a comment on this case. "They think that by doing so, they are helping them, but this is, of course, not so.
"On the one hand, an excessive desire to help and take care of children actually does a disservice to them—after all, after coming of age, they become nearly helpless in everyday life. So parents thereby extend their ‘window of usefulness’ for their children for years and years. But by doing so they only make things worse for them in the long run.
"By the way, this woman should also watch her partner's reaction to this behavior of his parents. If he relies too much on their opinions and decisions, then this could be a significant red flag for the further development of their relationship," Maria assumes.
Many commenters on the original post agreed that the author may face problems in the future due to her boyfriend's overly passive attitude towards such manifestations of parental "care." Most responders simply believed that the OP was absolutely right and that the annoying parents should be put in their place. So what about you, our dear readers—do you also agree with this?
People in the comments sided with the author, also assuming that their 'helicopter parenting' could be a red flag for their relationship
