It's hard as a parent to find the line between being too strict and too easy going on the kids. Some parents, though, are so overbearing, strict doesn't even begin to describe it. They go completely overboard when it comes to their kids' safety, morality, and accomplishments. Parents like this could definitely use a chill pill. Content has been edited for clarity.
Her Mom Treated Her Like A Baby Just Because It Was Convenient
Cultura Motion/Shutterstock
“I knew a mother who kept her 5-year-old daughter in diapers when they went out of the house because she didn’t want her using public restrooms. Because the girl sitting in her own excrement was much better for her health, apparently.”
He Couldn’t Even Go To The Library Without His Mom Freaking Out
Sergey Nivens/Shutterstock
“I worked at a small community library. A kid lived in the building across the parking lot from the library. He would leave his building, walk the approximately 150 feet to the front door of the library, come to the desk, and use the courtesy phone to call and report to his mom that he got to the library safely.
I remember the day that he didn’t do this. She came flying into the library like five minutes later FREAKING OUT that her son had been kidnapped and we needed to find him.
I remember seeing him visibly sink into his chair at the computer as he heard his mom yelling.”
She Insisted Her Daughter Didn’t Get The Job Because Of Prejudice
Wally Stemberger/Shutterstock
“I had a mother turn up at my workplace accusing me of being prejudice because I didn’t hire her daughter. We’re a multicultural practice. I took her to our photo wall of staff and asked her why she thinks I was prejudice and she said that her daughter ‘looked more Indian than the other staff.’
Her daughter, who was more than qualified, didn’t get the job for a couple of reasons:
1) She refused to put her phone away during the interview in case her mother phoned.
2) Her mother phoned more than 10 times. She answered every call.
3) She asked if she could keep her mum on the phone to listen to the interview in case she needed help to answer my questions.
How could she run a practice if she needed to have her mom help her at the interview?”
Her Mother’s Controlling Behavior Bordered On Abuse
Iakov Filimonov/Shutterstock
“My mom sets up fake Facebook accounts with other peoples’ names (like her financial advisor) in order to see if she can view my page.
I’m 38 years old.
When I was married, she would reprimand me if I went places (grocery store, dinner with MY friends) without my husband. My mom is VERY independent.
This is a family rumor that she denies. She somehow got through on the phone with my college’s president and told him, ‘My daughter was a good Christian girl until she went to YOUR school.’ I went to a Christian college. And I have no doubt that this happened. She’s the type.
When I was in high school, I was allowed to walk the six blocks to school. No one was ever allowed to use the telephone in the school office except in an emergency. Except me. Everyone in town knew my mom AND her reputation, and they bow to her whims because they pick their battles. So I was required to call my mom every morning when I arrived at school, I had special permission to use the phone. One morning, I forgot, so she called the principal, who called over the intercom in my classroom. He asked whether I was in class because my mom was on the phone wondering if I had made it the six blocks to school.
Throughout my 18 years living with my parents, I spent one night alone at home. I was never allowed to be alone. Even as a teenager, on the rare occasion that both parents were not home overnight, I had to have a babysitter. My mom’s former best friend, specifically, who once made me sleep on her neighbor’s pool deck and then took photos of me in the morning as I woke up, bleary-eyed in my sleeping bag.”
He Was Very Concerned About His Daughter’s Access To The Coed Section Of The Dorms
Elena Elisseeva/Shutterstock
“I was helping move in freshmen to the dorms. If you agreed to move the newbies, you got to move in three days early and beat the rush.
A man approached me, asking, ‘Is this a co-ed dorm?’
‘Yes.’
‘I asked for my daughter to be in the all female dorm.’
‘Oh, I understand, sir. That’s actually right across the breezeway. Usually, it’s in Building X, but X is being renovated so they moved it here. That entire wing is only female.’
‘But she could walk over here, and it would be coed?’
‘Well, yes sir, she could walk anywhere she wanted.’
Long silence. ‘I’ll tell her she’s not allowed to walk this way.’
I never found out who is daughter was, but I’m sure she followed those rules.”
She Was Enraged Over Her Daughter’s C For The Craziest Reason
pathdoc/Shutterstock
“I used to teach middle school. The teacher next to me had given a sixth-grade girl a C on a paper because it didn’t meet the proper criteria.
The girl’s mom was livid and came into the school, furious about the grade.
After the teacher and the mom went back and forth about the grade, the Mom blurted out, ‘I HAVE A COLLEGE DEGREE. I TOOK WRITING COURSES FOR FOUR YEARS. I WROTE THIS PAPER. ARE YOU TELLING ME I CAN’T GET AN ‘A’ ON A SIXTH GRADE ASSIGNMENT?’
The teacher stuck to her decision.”
When She Couldn’t Get Ahold Of Him, She Totally Panicked
rSnapshotPhotos/Shutterstock
“I was a trustee for my college fraternity.
The final week of pledging, the recruits live in the fraternity house. We have them turn over their phones for the week.
On day two of the week, campus police came knocking on the door looking for one of the recruits.
Turns out, his mother would call him every morning to wake him for class, then call again in the evening to discuss his homework schedule for the night. When she couldn’t get in touch with him, she started calling the local police department, then the campus safety office, and even the dean of students.
I also have a friend that works as a recruiter for a big consulting firm. She specializes in hiring interns and co-ops. She has so many stories, including parents calling ahead of the interview to give a list of topics that make their child uncomfortable, calling after an interview for a debrief, showing up to the interview with their child, and calling mid-internship to get a status update.”
Her Mom Treated Her More Like A Best Friend Than A Daughter
VH-studio/Shutterstock
“I went to boarding school for high school, and when I was a senior, there was a freshman whose mother would drive three hours every weekend to be with her. On the weekends, her mother wouldn’t take her out; she would hang out with her daughter’s friends with her, to the point where I think the mother thought she was friends with her daughter’s friends. Field trips? She would go. Band tours? She would make sure she was at every place they performed. The mother would try and assign extra homework for her to do on top of her school work, which went on until a dean found out and yelled at the mom.
I went to the alumni party this year and I stayed at an old staff member’s house. That happened to be where the class that graduated that year was having a gathering. Lo and behold, the girl was there, and so was her mother.”
She Was Constantly Calling Her Daughter To Verify Where She Was
Pamela Au/Shutterstock
“My sister is a freshman in college and her roommate has an absolute psycho helicopter mom. They’re both on the cross country team and good students. My sister said the roommate never drinks or goes out, but her mom tracks her through phone GPS and texts her constantly asking why she’s at such and such place.
My sister said one time they were at Wal-Mart getting groceries, and her mom called her to ask why she was at Wal-Mart at 9 p.m. Another time, they drove to our other sister’s apartment to pick something up. The girl’s mom called and started yelling and asking why she’d been sitting in a parking lot for 20 minutes. My sister said she’ll constantly have to send pictures of them at the library to the mom to prove they’re actually studying.
I don’t get that kind of smothering of your kid. I mean, if you want to check up on what they’re doing, then fine. Especially if you’re paying the bills, but the poor girl can’t have a normal college experience and is constantly worried about upsetting her mom. It just all seems so unhealthy to me. I mean, I had friends’ parents who did that in high school, but once they’re adults in college, you have to cut the cord.”
You Know You’re An Overbearing Mom When You Helicopter Parent Other People’s Kids
Dasha Muller/Shutterstock
“My local indoor play center has an area for toddlers, suggested for kids 1 to 3 years old. It’s not enforced, thankfully, because the area is tiny and kids get bored of it fast. My 2-year-old students like playing in the ‘big kid’ area where there’s more room to climb and explore and run. My son, in particular, enjoys a slide that’s not meant for kids under 5, it’s pretty much a vertical drop, but he loves it.
So one day, my kids are playing, and because of potty training, I disappear for 30 seconds to take my daughter to pee. It’s a quiet morning, school day, the toddler area gate is propped open so younger kids can wander in and out. I come back from the toilet, and my son is SCREAMING angrily, locked in the toddler area and another mum is standing beside the gate.
I say, ‘Oh, you can let him out, he probably bumped the block holding the gate open.’
She says, ‘No, he’s a toddler, he needs to stay in the toddler area.’ She had apparently picked him up inside the big kid area, walked down the steps holding him, put him in the toddler area and closed the gate. Then she waited until I came back to berate me for letting my ‘tiny baby’ play in the big kid area.
Then I saw her kid. Clearly school age, pale, bags under their eyes, obviously sick and should not be in a play center. So I open the gate and let my son out, then go over to the staff and inform them that this strange woman has handled my son without my permission and that her child is sick. They booted her out and I took my kids home.”
His Mother Refused To Let Him Fail
ValeryMinyaev/Shutterstock
“The kid is about 9 years old. I’ve known him since before he started school. His mom is an acquaintance of mine and the kid himself has had classes with one of my kids, who is the same age.
She has forced herself into every activity and classroom that he’s ever been in. She starts off volunteering in the classroom normally, but little by little, she shows up more often, whether the teacher asked her to or not. Some teachers have told her to stop, but others just let it happen.
She spends all day, every day with him. She never gives him any space. She hovers over everything he does and if it’s not perfect, she ‘fixes’ it. I’m sure she’s completed his homework herself several times. Sometimes the teachers will send home an art project as homework, like a pumpkin to decorate in the fall or whatever, and his always comes back looking like an adult did it alone.
She never lets him face any uncomfortable situations or adversity. She got mad one day when she said to the first-grade teacher, ‘My son woke up in a sad mood today.’
The teacher answered, ‘I’ll keep an eye on him, but I think he’ll be okay.’
This infuriated her to the point where she vented to me about it. I had to ask her, ‘But, was he okay though?’ Yeah. He was. She wanted the teacher to make a big fuss over him and give him special attention. She felt that the teacher didn’t care because she didn’t fall all over herself to coddle him.”
He Was Under Almost Constant Surveillance
Elvira Koneva/Shutterstock
“I knew a kid way back in the day whose his parents overly supervised everything he did.
If he wanted to play outside, it had to be in the little ‘park’ that’s 50 feet from their front door. The dad would just be staring out the windows. Any bad language? That’s a paddlin’. Sarcasm? You better believe that’s a paddlin’!
I remember one time someone bought some Swedish Fish and was sharing them with everyone. The mom came flying out and said, ‘You can only have ONE fish,’ and then watched him eat a single fish and made sure he wouldn’t eat another.
Now the kid is so deep in the closet, he’s wrapping Christmas presents and so stressed he could turn coal into diamonds.”
She Treated Her Daughter Like A Little Princess
Gelpi/Shutterstock
“I am in private elementary education.
I had a student one year who was the middle child of three, and the mother was the textbook definition of a helicopter parent. But it was more than that; she also had a bad case of ‘wanting to be your 10-year-old’s best friend instead of their parent.’
Here is a short list of things she did:
-She would come attend school events and try to sit next to her child on the floor (‘criss-cross applesauce’ and all).
-She would deliver her child lunch every single day. Not send in a packed lunch, mind you. She would deliver something. Like fast food, especially Chik-Fil-A. And she always had enough for herself as well, so she basically tried to come eat lunch with her daughter every day. One day, I confronted the student about this and made up a bogus rule that her mom had to bring me lunch, as well. Sure enough, the next day I got a sub from Subway.
-She would let the girl stay home for any and all reasons. The girl was absent 25 days the year before I had her. Although I tried my best to crush that bad habit, I only got her down to 14 days absent when I had her. Some of the notes/doctor’s excuses the mom sent in were ridiculous.
-When she was at the school for her younger child, she would sneak out and walk the halls to peak through the classroom windows of her other two kids to ‘check on them.’ I would joke with our principal that this woman might secretly be an employee of our security company trying to find flaws in our security procedures. We had to come up with all sorts of new rules and procedures for all the parents to follow just to stop this one woman.
-The girl was not a good student, and I am sure more than half of the homework handed to me was completed by the mother.
My final interaction with her was when I invited her and her husband in for a conference because I gave the girl a ‘0’ for missing an assignment from an unexcused absence, and I forced the mother to admit that she took the girl shopping that day instead of bringing her to school. The dad was unaware this was happening and went off on her. It didn’t solve the problem permanently, but it toned it down while I had her, at least.
The sad thing is you encounter parents like this all the time. They don’t realize the long-term harm they are causing their children or the bad habits they are helping them to develop.”
They Were Never Alone While They Played In Her Room
George Rudy/Shutterstock
“As a kid, my sister had a friend and went over to her house quite a bit to hang out. The friend lived in a quiet neighborhood.
After a day of hanging with her friend at her house, my sister told me that her friend’s parents had placed cameras in her room. The camera was also equipped with a microphone to not only hear what was going on in her room but also to speak to the child.
My sister told stories after coming home about the Mom calling into the room to tell them to stop doing an activity or to be quiet. THIS WOMAN WAS WATCHING THEIR EVERY MOVE AND LISTENING TO THEIR EVERY CONVERSATION!
I feel bad for the girl, honestly. To me that’s a huge invasion of privacy, as well as it is extremely creepy in general.
If it were me, I’d throw every camera installed in the room straight out the window, or at the Mom. Whichever.”
They Still Treated Him Like He Was A Little Boy
Africa Studio/Shutterstock
“A guy I know is 23. He was adopted by two moms.
I’m not sure which mom is worse. One of them runs all his social media accounts. We would get messages from him that just sounded weird. When asked, he would have no idea what he said. He has a cell phone that can only call his parents and 911. He’s not allowed to drive. Anytime he goes somewhere new, his mom tags along for a few hours to ‘check things out.’ He’s only allowed to eat at certain restaurants and has to check in with his moms constantly.
He doesn’t see any issue with this. I almost think it’s a form of abuse. He is not an independent thinker; he relies on everyone else to make decisions for him. Smart kid, too.”
Her Mother Was Her Stalker
Jon Schulte/Shutterstock
“I was 20 years old and still not allowed out of the house without my mom. I still had to hold hands crossing the street. I never had a job, never learned to cook, all because I was, in her words, ‘going to live with her forever.’
I got a boyfriend, even though I’d never been allowed to visit anyone’s house. Ever. She asked to see his social security number and birth certificate to prove he was the age he said he was.
I told her I wanted to move out and she freaked. She called the police and told them I was mentally unstable, told them I wasn’t ready for the outside world.
The police believed her and it took me a year to escape. I even had relatives parked outside at night to make sure I didn’t leave.
I’m now 23 and slowly adjusting to the world, but it’s hard. I can cook, but driving is hard. I have no social skills. I don’t know how to talk to people.
And she still asks me to come home every day via text.”
His Mother Turned The Event Into A Spectacle
Igor Palamarchuk/Shutterstock
“I took the ACT this December for my second time. I’d made a 30 the last time, and I wanted to see if I could improve.
So I was standing in line, waiting to be checked in and I saw this lady come in. She looked to be about 35 and she had this rolling suitcase that said, ‘It’s ok to be a little crazy.’ I didn’t know how true that saying was at the time.
I thought she was one of the testing people who supervise and hand out the tests, but no, she was not. She came with her (I’m guessing) middle school or freshman child, who wore a hoodie the whole time and didn’t bring a pencil to the test.
We were all in line and she started cutting in line so her boy could be up ahead, saying it was his first time, cut her a break, and she was an adult. She kept on moving up the line until she got to these big football players, and stayed where she was, getting glares from the rest of the line.
I went in the classroom and I looked out the door to see the lady arguing with the test ladies, saying she had every right to be in their with her son to make sure he was alright and she would call the ACT company. They wouldn’t let her in. She decided to sit outside for the test and wait for him.
She brought blankets and snacks. During the break, she kept telling everyone how her smart boy was taking the ACT for the first time and how he was going to score higher than all of us. This lady added more confusion to this already confusing day.”