Who’d’ve Thought They’d Ruin Their Kid With Their Overbearing Ways

wavebreakmedia/Shutterstock
“I teach 5th grade. My first year teaching, I had a student whose parents were controlling to the millionth degree to the point where during birthday celebrations in school, he couldn’t have any cake because the parents were concerned that the saliva from the birthday child would land on the cake and he would ingest it.
During a field trip one time, his parents specifically requested to be chaperones on a field trip. When you are a chaperone, you typically have a group of 4-6 kids with you, but his parents only wanted to be chaperones for THEIR child. I explained to them that they would need to have more children in their group and they began to argue with me that they were ‘good pious folks’ that didn’t want their child ‘tainted by the nature of the field trip’ (their words, not mine). The field trip was to a nearby candy factory, so I have no idea how this interfered with their religious beliefs nor how these two things were even remotely related. Anyway, when I notified them that they would need more kids in the group, the dad picked up the child over their shoulder, walked to the car, and sped off. FIFTH GRADE.
This was years ago. I truly believe those parents messed that kid up for life. He had very little friends and zero coping skills. In fact, that same kid is currently in the alternative school for attempted assault of a teacher when she handed him a grade that very clearly read ‘72%’ (a C in the US) and he believed he should have received an A. He was so overcome with rage that he literally tried to hurt the adult in the room. It’s very sad.”
He Couldn’t Solve Simple Problems

iordani/Shutterstock
“I teach preschool. I had a parent that literally did everything for her (age 3-4 when I had him) son. He couldn’t even put his own jacket on…he didn’t know how.
I remember one day we were having a calm day and I let the kids go to an activity of their choice. The kid wanted to play at a certain table and I told him to go ahead, just grab an extra chair. He grabbed the chair (we finally got him to do that on his own) and as he went to carry it over to the activity, another classmate was sitting too far into the aisle. He stopped. And he waited. And waited some more, just staring at her. I watched and was starting to wonder what was going on when he full on began to cry and ran to me bawling. I, totally confused, asked him what was wrong. He told me, ‘I can’t get my chair through, she’s in my way!’
I told him, ‘Go ask her to move it then.’
His mom wasn’t there to do it for him. It was sad really, the kid had zero coping skills.”
Keeping Control Well Into Their Teens

Christy Thompson/Shutterstock
“I took a group of seniors on an overnight field trip, one kid just wanted to stay in and watch TV.
I asked why and he was like ‘UH, THIS IS HBO?!’
The 18-year-old male wasn’t even allowed to watch Spongebob at home. I told him if he didn’t tell his parents, I’d buy him two sodas and he could just stay up all night catching up with his peers.
I felt so bad for him, I showed him how to log on to the WiFi and let him use a spare laptop.
Afterward, he said, ‘That was the greatest weekend of my life!’
Who doesn’t let an 18-year-old drink soda, watch non-religious tv, or use the internet? I led him right into the dark side.
Also, a parent once complained to their kid’s boss that their kid had a hickey from a girl he met at THIS JOB and what kind of business are we running?! The kid was 19 and totally sucking necks with his coworker during their lunch break. It’s their lunch break, though, and he’s an adult so, you do you. His mom came to the job to scream after the phone call didn’t get a response she felt was appropriate.”
Taking It Far Beyond Just Helicoptering

digitalskillet/Shutterstock.com
“My friend is in his 30s now, has a good job and is married and has a kid. His mother had him when she was 17/18 and the father died a couple years later after he was born. His mother made him take showers with her and spoonfeeds him. She makes him sleep in bed with her and hold hands together when they go out.
I guess it’s because she never truly got over her husband’s death and that her son looks a lot like him. Whenever I saw her dating someone, it was always someone that looked like her son.
My friend never really likes to talk about her and I suspect she tried to hook up with him.
But some of the things he told me was that when he was younger, she made him call her every half hour and she also would chaperone with the purpose of keeping an eye on him.
He only meets her a couple times a year and never gives her any other contact info, only a number for his old flip phone”
She Went Through Elaborate Schemes To Follow Her Daughter

Pamela Au/Shutterstock
“I work with graduate students. While planning orientation programming, an incoming student’s mother contacted me to ask if she could come to orientation with her daughter. She then pretended to be her daughter and asked if ‘her mom’ could come with her. I started including the daughter on emails and needless to say, she was mortified about how her mother was acting.”
His Mother Knows Just How To Press His Buttons

Mangostar/Shutterstock
“I have a friend whose mom tries to fix everything in his life for him, which I don’t get since my friend is incredibly responsible and gets stuff done.
For an example, we’re starting college and his mom has called the new student counselors dozens of times until they eventually just told her, more than once until she got it, that she had to stop calling. But when my friend had a few questions and went up to the college to ask a counselor, his mom forced her way into going up with him and asked dozens of her own questions. Now that his professors are set, she has called all of them several times and, using my friend’s personal email, emailed his professors’ questions near daily.
Whenever he tries to tell her not to do these things, she bawls, saying that she’s being cut out of his life and that he doesn’t love her. Which leads him to a point where he explodes over the phone once every month or two, then she bawls even more and guilt trips him into apologizing. Oh, and those phone calls: his mom calls him like 5-6 times a day. Not to even mention the paragraphs of text she sends him, calling him if he doesn’t quickly respond.
She’s crazy.”
How To Be Friends With Someone Who Isn’t “Allowed” To Do Anything

Sasa Prudkov/Shutterstock
“My daughter has a friend who is very sheltered. One day after school, my daughter told me her friend cried after finding out some people don’t believe in God. I believe this was 3rd or 4th grade. She had no clue that there were other religions out there or that atheists were a thing. We live in the Bible Belt and this was when my kids attended a private Christian school, but it still seemed extreme.
It got worse over the years. She has never been allowed to sleep over our house because I have a teen son as well close in age to my daughter (kids are 1.5 years apart) and her mom doesn’t think unrelated boys and girls should be able to sleep in the same house. She still isn’t allowed to come to our pool in the summer if my son and his friends are around. My son is extremely extroverted and active, so our house in the hangout spot in the neighborhood, so him not having friends around is pretty uncommon. If he is home, then he most likely has friends over. She hasn’t been in our pool all summer because her mom doesn’t trust her to be around shirtless teen boys.
She also isn’t allowed to talk to waitresses or waiters or anything like that. We took her out to eat for my daughter’s 14th birthday and she was surprised when we expected her to order food. She had never been allowed to do something like that before. She is a very nice girl but she and my daughter are slowly growing apart because of how sheltered she is. It’s hard to be friends with someone who isn’t allowed to do much of anything.”
My Dad, The Drill Sergeant

Thomas M Perkins/Shutterstock
“I had a guy come into the restaurant I worked at with his three girls and what struck me most was just how polite and proper they were. Not saying that most kids aren’t, but there was something kind of creepy or robotic about these girls.
Anyway, one of them accidentally knocked over her water (like 99% of kids do) and the father stared at her like a drill sergeant and asked, ‘What happened just now? What should you have done? What will you do the next time?’ Meanwhile, the girl, who was probably 5 or 6, looked sheepish and knew exactly what answers he wanted. The thing was, this guy wasn’t some military looking type. He looked like some preppy accountant or something.
I don’t know, maybe it doesn’t sound that bad, but I swear there was something creepy and controlling about that dad. Then I thought, eh, they’ll just rebel hard in college.”
A Teacher Faces The Wrath Of A Snobby Mother

karnavalfoto/Shutterstock
“While teaching a summer school class, I got to see a kid’s mom in action with the teacher who used the classroom before me. I was arriving, she was packing up, and the kid’s mom was talking to the teacher in the most affected and self-involved fashion imaginable. Imagine everything in italics in a fulsome-yet-needling tone filled with passive-aggressive condescension:
‘What the teacher didn’t understand was that her son needed a more engagement-driven pedagogy in order to truly connect with the material. He was naturally very gifted, but he had difficulty maintaining engagement when placed in a more traditional classroom setting. It was vital that he receive full credit for this summer course despite difficulties engaging with the homework because his teacher in the regular school year was simply unsuitable for students functioning on her son’s level.’
Holy. Cow. It went on like that for a good five minutes. Just when I thought it couldn’t get worse, the kid chipped in. He referred to his mother as ‘Mother’ in a similarly affected pronunciation and I began to wonder how the heck he’d survived middle school. He seconded everything Mother said, the gist of which is that (see subtext above) he wasn’t doing any homework, had failed the course in the regular school year, was failing it again and doing nothing useful in class, and clearly the teacher needed to make some big changes.
Bless her, I’ve rarely seen such a calm, professional handling of an absolutely outrageous situation. I congratulated her after they left and she lit up with relief and appreciation. No matter how calm someone is in the moment, that sort of thing is always stressful. I brought cupcakes the next day and we shared.”
“Man, She Could Suck The Fun Out Of A Room In Seconds”

Hatchapong Palurtchaivong/Shutterstock
“Sadly, my own ex-wife. My oldest son was 4 when we took him to the happiest freaking place on Earth, Disney World. We went to Pleasure Island while there and stopped off to catch a kid’s outdoor concert. Keep in mind that my ex needed to have control over every aspect of our son’s entertainment and life. The band started and kids were having fun and I put my son on my shoulders so he could see better, because what 4-year-old doesn’t want to see a cool kid’s band? She immediately motioned for him to cover his ears due to the volume of the music. It wasn’t even that loud but she couldn’t let it be. I pulled his hands off his ears and he smiled because he could hear the music better. Nope. She stood behind me and covered his ears with her hands. I told her to stop and to let him enjoy the concert but she refused.
I walked forward a few steps and she hit me from behind because I wouldn’t let her ‘mother’ the way she wanted. Not my proudest moment but I lost it. She was interfering with his fun for the last time. He wasn’t having fun because she wouldn’t let him so I started walking towards the exit because if he wasn’t allowed to have fun, no one was having fun. She punched and slapped me as I tried to get through the crowd and we had a blowout fight right there in front of hundreds of people due to her overbearing nature.
We finally divorced seven years later (long overdue). We get along great now and we are one big happy family but man, she could suck the fun out of a room in seconds.”
“You Won’t Survive Without Me!”

TeodorLazarev/Shutterstock
“This happened to us literally like three months ago.
So my partner’s mother always went on about how he would never survive without her and has been telling him and his brothers this since he was about 14. She never taught them to cook or be proper functioning adults. I moved into their place roughly a year ago (it was closer to the city my uni is in) and she seemed very hesitant whenever I brought up the idea of moving out. I’ve had experience in living on my own, so my partner would be able to handle it. He turned 21 in March and has a job and she’s abusing the heck out of me and my mental state and he’s had enough of it, we decide to tell her via group messenger that we’re going to start looking for apartments.
This is when all craziness breaks loose.
She started bringing up every excuse under the sun on why he couldn’t leave, claiming he doesn’t know how to deal with bills or that he would end up killing himself if she wasn’t there to help him. He was angry that she wouldn’t even give him a chance to learn. She ended up kicking us out that same day (when we had offered to stay and continue paying rent until we found a place) and disowning him. We went to pack our stuff up after several threats about the police being called. While we were there, she and her partner screamed bloody murder at me for ‘changing her son,’ she hates me, they swore at my mother who was there for my emotional support. Then her partner spat at me, blamed me for ruining their family and lives, and told my partner they don’t want him to even visit his mother’s grave when she dies.
Fast forward to now, we’re happy in our three-bedroom apartment looking to rescue my partner’s 19-year-old brother and move him in. We’ve only received two threatening messages from the mother.”
Protective And Devout Can Be A Dangerous Combination

Photographee.eu/Shutterstock
“A friend of mine I had in elementary and part of middle school: Her mom wouldn’t leave her alone to the point if she was doing lawn work, my friend would have to go outside, too. The friend’s mom had to know my mom well before we could really be friends. My friend’s mom was always checking in on us, my friend wasn’t allowed to go trick-or-treating, nor was she allowed to eat the candy she got in those Valentine’s Day boxes at school without her mom checking it out first. My friend’s computer had a program that tracked every little thing she did and sent it to her mom’s email.
She was only allowed to watch G-rated things when she was 12. She couldn’t even watch things that were rated PG. She was also only allowed to listen to music her mom approved of, which were mostly old Christian hymns. Her mom was a devout Catholic. I wonder if that had to do with anything
The only reason why I still remember this is because my mom (who is basically the opposite of overprotective of me), used my old friend’s mom as a warning. She said that my friend wouldn’t be the friend I remembered anymore if/when she got out from under her mom’s over-protection. My mom’s seen it before in her own friends. Every single one of those over-protected friends she had went wild when they got out from under their parents’ rule. My mom told me to stay far away from those people, since helicopter parents ruin their kids, and will sometimes try and ruin their kids’ friends, too.”
Never Wants To Let Her Go

VGstockstudio/Shutterstock
“Throughout school, my friend’s mom barely let her do anything. She could never come to my house, even though I lived right next door and her mom was always a chaperone on school trips. When we got to junior high and we started playing sports and got to go on more trips, her mom threw a fit that she couldn’t chaperone these trips and instead, would follow the bus in her car to each event. If my friend was ever out of her mom’s sight, she would constantly get text messages.
She calmed down a little when we were in our junior year of high school and my friend started driving and got a boyfriend. But her mom still would send her constant texts and the first few days of my friend driving herself to school, her mom followed her in her own car and even went with my friend on the first few dates with her boyfriend.
She backed off a bit until my friend went to college. Her mom moved to the city she goes to college and tried making my friend move in with her. My friend got another boyfriend who she is actually now married to and her mom still tries to get my friend to let her now move in with them, but she is standing her ground thank goodness.”
Pro Tip: Moms Aren’t Allowed At Job Interviews

ldutko/Shutterstock
“My husband was in charge of hiring at a software company a few years back. A young man came in to interview for an entry-level programming position. His mom came with him. My husband didn’t worry too much about the mom being in the lobby but when she wanted to go with him into the interview, my husband said only the young man was allowed to go. This woman became enraged. My husband then said, ‘Ok. The interview is over then.’
He then turned to the young man and told him that he didn’t get the job because of his mother and hopefully she doesn’t go with him to any more interviews. My husband said that the young man actually looked relieved that someone had stood up to his helicopter mom for once instead of allowing her to do what she wanted. Poor kid, though.”
LOVE STORIES AND WANT TO READ MORE LIKE THESE?

Subscribe to our digest and receive a weekly email of hand-picked stories.