Skip to main content

Newsroom

Beyond the Headlines

Millennials have long been targeted as the most selfish or self-absorbed generation, despite some evidence to the contrary (as reported in The Atlantic). But now new studies have taken a hard look at how "helicopter parents" might be to blame and why millennials need to cut the cord — sooner rather than later — in order to increase their chances for long-term health and success.

In a paper for the Georgia State University Law Review, Suffolk University professor Kathleen Vinson writes about this phenomenon: "Hovering Too Close: The Ramifications of Helicopter Parenting in Higher Education." The problem, Vinson writes, is not actually millennials themselves.

"They are needy, overanxious and sometimes plain pesky — and schools at every level are trying to find ways to deal with them," writes Valerie Strauss in the Washington Post. "No, not students. Parents — specifically parents of today's 'millennial generation’ who, many educators are discovering, can't let their kids go."

Sharon Hill, Assistant Dean and Director of Graduate Admission at Bentley University, says that parents are still trying to intervene in their child's career — at the graduate level and beyond. They might take it upon themselves to call and demand to speak directly to the university president if their child isn't admitted to the MBA program, say, or tag along on interviews, even without being asked by their "children " — who may at this point be firmly established in their careers.

In 1986, only about half of parents reported that they spoke to their grown children once a week, according to the New York Times, but today 67 percent of mothers and 51 percent of fathers say they have contact with their adult child almost every day, according to the 2013 Clark University Poll of Parents of Emerging Adults. Director of the poll and research professor Jeffrey Jensen Arnett coined the concept of "emerging adulthood” or the life stage in a person's twenties where they strive to "find themselves." For millennials, this may have contributed to delayed adolescence (among other ramifications.) and a generation of parents "slow to cut the cord," according to NPR's New Boom series on millennials,

Narcissism due to excessive praise is one negative byproduct of these increasingly close and prolonged relationships between parent and child, according to a study from the prestigious “Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences” (PNAS), as featured in The New Republic. In response to studies like these, media outlets are increasingly focusing on helping millennials, who are now becoming parents themselves, to avoid the pitfalls of their helicopter parents through proactive advice such as: "7 ways to nip narcissism in the bud," recently featured in the Washington Post.

More troubling perhaps than an increase in narcissism are the long-term problems with independence and strategizing that many millennials are now experiencing without the structure of parental involvement. Slate reports that these bigger problems of delayed adulthood include a rapid rise in the rate of depression among millennials, directly attributable to twenty-somethings no longer seeing themselves as adults (as did earlier generations) and therefore finding it hard to breach adulthood and become autonomous from their helicopter parents. It may even be to blame for their inability to form mature adult romantic relationships.

"Note to the helicopter parents out there: Unless it’s your goal, you may be inadvertently making it harder for your son or daughter to eventually get married," cautions Kevin Lewis in a freshly published piece for The Boston Globe. Researchers at the School of Family Life at Brigham Young University analyzed data from college students around the country and found that students who reported having helicopter parents (agreeing that “my parent makes important decisions for me” or “my parent intervenes in solving problems”) also thought it was better to be single and to delay marriage, even controlling for gender, religiosity, race, and parental marital status, warmth, and education.

April Lane is a freelance writer.