The Helicopter Parent Goes to College

"On an August Sunday 35 years ago, I moved into my freshman-year college dorm. My parents, who had traveled with me from Southern California to New England, took me to buy my first winter coat and snow boots, along with a houseplant that the store clerk described as "hard to kill," and then we made our way to campus. My new roommate invited me to go shopping for Blu Tack so that we could hang posters in our room."

"This was a fairly typical beginning to 1980s college life. Parents waved from the curb, cried in the parking lot, and maybe sent a care package two weeks later. I scheduled weekly calls with my parents for Sunday evenings, phoning from our room's landline before heading to dinner. The college experience was marked by rupture, the sometimes messy yet necessary transition from dependence to independence."

Parents now often follow college-aged children physically by renting nearby apartments or buying secondary homes to facilitate frequent visits. These "trailing parents" accompany students to campus cities or study-abroad locations, providing logistics, comfort, and immediate support. College administrators report that such arrangements have become common and blur the historical rupture between adolescence and independent adulthood. The presence of trailing parents can limit opportunities for students to develop autonomy, create administrative challenges, and reflect broader cultural shifts toward intensified parental involvement, safety concerns, and the financial ability of families to maintain multiple residences.

Read at The Atlantic