Apparently, 18 years of helicopter parenting is just not enough for some people.
The Associated Press recently reported on a growing trend where parents are following their child to college or at least to their college town to monitor their child in college or even to have them keep living at home.
This bizarre trend started to spike in 2008 when children of 1990s started heading off to college.
Coldwell Banker, the real estate firm, was compiling its annual College Home Price Comparison Index that ranked average home prices in more than 300 college towns when it noticed the jump, AP reported. The firm has not measured this increase directly, but said that agents have continued to see it exemplified in home rentals and sales around the country near campuses.
The parents interviewed by the AP all have a variety of reasons for the move, but all believe it is for the best.
Lori Osterberg, her husband, and their daughter all share an apartment near her daughter’s college in Portland, Ore. Osterberg and her husband told the AP that they had always planned to move somewhere exciting after their daughter graduated high school and deciding moving with her would fit the bill.
Dianne Sikel has moved to a spot between both of her sons so she can watch them play football on weekends.
It’s a common story heard by recruiters too.
“I was talking to this girl and asked how her parents were doing about her leaving,” Baker Gujral said. “She said, `They don’t mind living on the East Coast or the West Coast, so I’m applying to those places.’ I was, like, `Do you mean to tell me they’re going to move wherever you go to school’ and she said yeah. She didn’t look entirely thrilled about it.”
It’s nice that parents want to stay involved, but this takes it way too far. How is the much-maligned millennial generation supposed to stop being the “participation trophy”- or the “me, me, me” – generation when they haven’t been allowed to grow up?
