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And look at where her parents are from. The Kansas City region. The parents are displaying the typical control freak behavior and basic distrust of others that is at epidemic levels with the people in the KC region. People in the KC area automatically assume guilt or the worst in others regardless of whether or not they know them. Sad and sick all at the same time. Good for this gal to get these morons out of her life and good for the Judge to see the danger that exists with such evil parents in her life.
My dad and mom were (and still are) so bad that when it was time to leave the nest I didn't stop running until I got to Massachusetts! Luckily that was before there was any such thing as smart phones and the Internet for them to pry into. They and my sisters therefore could no longer read my personal mail or try to snoop on the extension while I made/took calls. One friend in particular is so disliked by them to this day that if somebody besides me picked up the phone the call had to turn into a "wrong number." At least now they "make nice" while I'm in town and communicating with this person. Plus, here again thank goodness for the lack of technology at the time, any use of a car was hard-won and brought with it a barrage of interrogation and guilt if I got home late.
I suspect this student's folks are cut from the same cloth, assuming that because she's an adult and on her own that means she's bed-hopping all over town and getting sloshed at every opportunity. (Not to mention indulging in "controlled substances," the horror!)
Here in Boston I've also run across helicopter parents and/or their victims. That's one aspect of humanity that doesn't vary with geography. With that in mind, "one of my best friends" during the '80s was Kansas City born and bred.
Last edited by goyguy; 12-28-2012 at 04:22 PM..
Reason: punctuation error
Certainly some parents can be overbearing in their pursuit of what they believe is desirable for their child, perhaps to the point of overbearing.
Perhaps these parents were overindulgent in the girl's early years then wanted to clamp down. It is nice the college gave her a scholarship for her senior year. I hope it is both tuition and board, because if I was the parent and put under a court order that would be the last dime she would see from me, sorry that is just me.
There has to be certain ground rules. Our first two the rules were simple:
. You will go to UC and you will live at home.
. You will enter a Coop program, otherwise determine how to earn the tuition, ot take out loans.
. We will provide the room and board, reasonable expenses for clothes, and provide
transportation.
If you don't like these rules, then upon graduation from HS we expect you to get a job. And oh BTW we will also start to collect room and board until you move out. I think it was when we said we would start to collect (which I learned from my father) that they really perked up.
The first two were basically older to the point they were through UC before the 2nd two began. By that time they are both out of the nest. Reducing expenses from 4 to 2 does make quite a difference. Of course the wife and I were also older. We admittedly agreed to circumstances with the younger two which would have been persona non grata with the first two. That is the luck of the draw in your life.
We did not demand the last two go to UC. One went to Bowling Green State University in Ohio and the other to UK. Neither one was successful in a job in their primary college major. This frankly frosts my ass, as I believe that is what colleges are for, train you for a career. Thankfully both of them have recovered and are doing reasonably well in other fields.
This is my point! When you say a parent(s) can no longer exercise a reasonable degree of influence on both the educational or economic pursuits of their grown children, then you also have to absolve them of also any responsibility. Where do I draw the line? Very simply, who is still paying the bill?
Yes, it comes down to collars and cents. Many people paying high expenses for their college age students would be much further ahead socking it away for their retirement years.
My wife and I are thoroughly happy our kids appreciate our efforts. This past Christmas we had 3 of the 4 back home, the only absentia being a daughter and her husband stationed with the Army in Hawaii.
As we sat around Christmas Night till the wee hours, the ones here remarked Mom, Dad how did you achieve this? They now have 1 or 2 kids of their own. Only the oldest are college age, but they are seeing the difference.
Here in Boston I've also run across helicopter parents and/or their victims. That's one aspect of humanity that doesn't vary with geography. With that in mind, "one of my best friends" during the '80s was Kansas City born and bred.
When I was in graduate school, I had a 29 year old housemate that had the same issue. His parents would drop by unannounced and ordered him around. They had three sons all of whom jumped when the old man opened his mouth.
They invited me to join them for lunch one day. I was heading off to the library at the time. I declined. I thought that the father was going to chase me when I stepped around him and left.
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If you think that helicopter parents are bad, ask any professor these days. Nearly everyone has a story of having to argue grades with parents.
Unfortunately, this kind of control freak, fascist mentality is all too common here in the KC region. I've seen it elsewhere of course but not taken to this extreme. The people here are voyeurs and like to stick their nose into the personal business of others when they should not. They also are paranoid and delusional like her parents and see things that do not exist. In essence, they themselves are mentally ill, not their daughter. I have experienced some of this first hand and know all too well what she has gone through. This is going to leave emotional scars for many years.
I think what her parents failed to realize is that the moment that girl moved out of the house, they no longer, from a legal standpoint, could dictate the ground rules of living. More so after she turned 18 years old. Even if she still lived in the house at that age there are limitations to the way they can still parent once a kid becomes a legal age. While spying on her in their own home is probably legal, it definitely is NOT if she is an adult and living in another home without her consent. In this case it appears to be a dorm. I sincerely doubt any ground rules were laid out by her parents that were to be met for her to receive this tuition money at least as far as the spying goes. No rational adult would agree to being treated like a criminal by anyone including their parents in this manner.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by WILWRadio
this kind of control freak, fascist mentality is all too common here in the KC region.
Funny. I say exactly the same thing about Cincinnatians and their overbearing goosestepping Germanic sense of propriety to hammer everyone around them down into line.
This story was a hoot. Here's my interpretation: dysfunctional parents and daughter; who KNOWS what the root cause is; grist for making some therapist even more well-off in the coming decades. This entire family could be good for a therapist's kid's orthodontics or a new boat.
IMHO, who knows if it has to do with the area? Most normal people who aren't retarded and aren't idiots and aren't sociopaths figure out some 'median' or 'golden mean' of parental coaching and behavior in their offspring.
Obviously this family is "special" in a Steve Wilkos guest family way. What strikes me is that they aren't People of Wal-Mart level trash - they seem quite well off and (on the surface) normal. You'd think these people could manage things a bit better.
Is that classism I smell? The last post is a hoot in and of itself.
Having lived on both sides of the proverbial tracks I can report from firsthand knowledge that the human condition crosses economic lines. But in "better" places folks are all about keeping up appearances and trying to hold their problems under wraps.
What happens, for example, when a family is dealing with alcohol and spouse abuse issues? In precious Wyoming, with its very own little Fountain Square equivalent and its flower boxes on street-sign posts, it went like this in one household. The wife had a drinking problem. The husband enabled it by making a show of keeping no booze in the home but allowing her to use a car and have access to money. On a typical weekday morning he'd browbeat her to stay home and not drink, then leave for work. Whereupon she'd promptly hit her private stash and - if supplies were running low - proceed to take a weaving drive to the nearest pony keg. (Or she'd go to a convenience store for Meier's cooking wine if she decided it was too far to go to the state stores in Hartwell or Finneytown, or to a drive-thru in Woodlawn or Lockland. Wyoming is so special, y'see, that no one there struggles with chemical dependency and liquor stores sometimes draw a - you know - bad element. A drive-thru did manage to get itself situated on the far north end of town, but that was allowed 'cause the surrounding neighborhoods are middle- and working-class.) Once she got her hookup the car fishtailed back up the hill and when hubby got home she'd be sauced yet again. The cycle would repeat: loud arguing (though no physical battering that anyone could see), empty vows to seek treatment or have it ordered, off to bed after dinner the husband prepared. I caught wind of this after the missus made a few Meier's runs to the King Kwik - dating myself here - that I worked in for a while. Mrs Goyguy Sr, reliable repository of Wyoming gossip, laid it all out for me. She knew those people as well as their nearest abutters who were privy to the drama. But everybody stayed out of their business and was cordial to them; when they finally divorced it was universally wondered what had taken so long.
Compare that to how it goes in the inner city - and, it's safe to presume, in trailer parks and downtrodden rural towns. Half of a couple who lived on my block when I resided in a not-nice part of Boston had battles with the bottle. There wasn't any smoothing over of it for the public, however. The daughter of the woman whose apartment was on the floor below mine was the victimized half of that pair. So every time her ol' man got plastered and started in on her the whole street knew in minutes. We'd be awakened ('cause this would inevitably go on after midnight) by screaming from the alley: "MA, LEMME IN QUICK! HE'S BEATIN' ME AGAIN!!!" On the following day the guy would be contrite and crying on the shoulders of his male neighbors and friends. Same song, different verse: promises to work on the issue from one side, enabling (by staying in the situation) on the other. Those in well-heeled locales look down their noses and snicker at "trash" who would carry on like this without taking a good long glance in their own damn mirrors. I believe it's far better to have problems aired out in the open instead of pretending not to notice for the sake of "propriety."
And so it's come to pass for the aspiring stage star from Kansas City that her helicopter parents' business is in the street now. ("Thanks to this I'll have to quit my book club and we'll need to find new partners for bridge! I'll be driving three miles to buy groceries so I don't run into anyone at the market! Our lives are RUINED!!!!! " ) She'll be better off for the long haul by it, I think.
I'm enjoying this thread on a topic about which none of us have more than just the barest facts. A perfect example of my husband's saying that "people like to make up their own explanations for things."
I don't know what the real story is, but in my mind the biggest clue to what's really going on is the student's relationship with CCM: high grades plus the school has now agreed to pay her tuition for her senior year. That should tell us something.
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Oh, I completely agree with that. That was my point - who knows what's really going on in that family - but I added that IMO it's most likely not location specific.
My gut instinct is that the girl just acquired the means to be independent (if she won a scholarship) and seeks to get some distance from a sick relationship.
I thought the parents are supposedly counter-suing her to get back tuition they paid for her.
The classism angle is this - TV reality shows make it appear like the dirt poor and lower social rungs have the least self restraints and the most dysfunction. And in my opinion, a poor person will likely (not always) be less healthy in all respects than an affluent person.
The chances are, as Goyguy stated, very strong that an affluent family will have much more "closeted" psychological problems than will be more self evident in a less affluent family.
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At least now they "make nice" while I'm in town and communicating with this person. Plus, here again thank goodness for the lack of technology at the time, any use of a car was hard-won and brought with it a barrage of interrogation and guilt if I got home late.
The last post is a hoot in and of itself.
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