25 Instances Of Overbearing Helicopter Moms And Dads

Helicopter parenting, characterized by an overprotective and excessively involved approach to raising children, has become a subject of both fascination and concern in modern society. A recent Reddit thread invited users to share the worst instances of helicopter parenting they've witnessed, unleashing a flood of stories that range from the absurd to the downright alarming. As these tales unfolded, it became evident that helicopter parenting knows no bounds, leaving a trail of overbearing behaviors and unintended consequences.

#1

Image source: PlumLion, Marcus Aurelius/Pexels (not the actual photo) My cousin’s MIL coddled my cousin’s husband so much that when they arrived home from their honeymoon, his mom was there in his kitchen making dinner because she was “the only one who knows what her baby likes.” (Spoiler: nothing containing any type of fruit or vegetable, which have never crossed his lips because if he didn’t want to try it he should never have to). She also still goes over to their house before every vacation to pack his suitcase for him. Because a 35 year old award winning teacher and father of two couldn’t *possibly* know how to pack his own suitcase and obviously neither could his wife.

#2

Image source: guitarmaniac004, Juan Pablo Serrano Arenas/Pexels (not the actual photo) I went on a date with a girl, about an hour after the date ended, I get a Facebook friend request from BOTH the mother and father. Didn't go on a second date since it freaked me out and she saw nothing wrong with it.

#3

Image source: anon, Tobias Dziuba/Pexels (not the actual photo) In high school the mother of one of my classmates asked people on facebook to pray for her oldest son because of his p**n addiction. Idk if that is helicopter parenting but it was definitely weird.

#4

Image source: fischestix, cottonbro studio/Pexels (not the actual photo) Called off because her 17 year old son was home sick. Like single day sick, not hospital sick. I thought it was lie, but no she really doesn't let her 17 year old stay home alone.

#5

Image source: anon, Ketut Subiyanto/Pexels (not the actual photo) My former college posts their little police blotter on Facebook. Not that long ago, they posted with a story about a parent who saw that his daughter snapchatted with a boy at 2am from her dorm. Supposedly, this angered her father so much, that from the time of the post until around 10am the next morning, he kept trying to call his daughter, but she wasn't answering the phone. So what does he do? He calls the university police, and reports that she's "missing." So they basically do a welfare check on her and the story ends with "the student contacted her father." I commented on the Facebook post, said something like "Dad's just upset that his adult daughter's hooking up" or something. A man who appeared to be in his 40's/50's, angry-emoji'd my comment. I like to think that this was the dad.

#6

Image source: anon, Emma Bauso/Pexels (not the actual photo) My best friend got married last Saturday. After the reception in the afternoon she had to lie to her parents. She said was going to go shopping with her new husband, but really she went back to his house. They told her to be back to their house in two hours. It was infuriating to witness.

#7

Image source: ResettisReplicas, Pixabay/Pexels (not the actual photo) I have a friend in his late 20’s whose mom won’t let him use Facebook, takes away privileges for minor things, and won’t let him go out for more than a few hours on his own. I’ve met the mom, she’s very controlling, and yells at him about every tiny faux-pas.

#8

Image source: anon, Rajesh S Balouria/Pexels (not the actual photo) My brother was injured in a training accident in the Israeli army. It wasn't life threatening but it was a pretty messy injury that needed immediate care. For some reason the base commander tried to hide the injury and refused to send my brother to the hospital. Instead he sent him to the camp medic who took one look at my brother and said "here, have some morphine and holy god I'm going to call for help". My brother asked him to call my mom. My mom, a military police major at the time, commandeered a helicopter along with a squad of MP's. She then flew up into Lebanon where my brother was based, landed in the middle of his base, ordered her way into the medical tent while setting the MP's outside as guards, loaded my brother into the chopper and evacced him out. To be fair, she's a great mom who usually lets us fail on our own, but you asked for helicopter parenting examples and it doesn't get more helicopter parent than actually commandeering an armed helicopter to go take care of your son!

#9

Image source: ineedmorecheese, Karolina Grabowska/Pexels (not the actual photo) My mother is the worst helicopter parent to ever exist. She creeped me out, she was so bad. She, like many parents on this thread, never let me go ANYWHERE. Once I got my first real boyfriend (my now husband), it legitimately almost k****d her. We (her and I) fought all of the time about everything my boyfriend and I did. I had to ask if he could buy me tampons (with his own money and I didn't have any with me). I had to ask if he could buy me a shirt I liked (nothing crazy, some anime shirt). I was only allowed to see him once a week (only on the weekend and almost never on Sunday), never EVER twice a week. I had to text and give updates the entire time I was out. His house (our house now) had the worst signal ever so texts hardly ever came through or went out so she was constantly driving from my house to his to check up on us. Outside of her issues with my boyfriend, she would make random visits to my highschool to watch me eating lunch. She called my teachers every single day to write down what I did in class, what the homework was, and what my grades looked like. She bothered them so much that several of them pulled me aside and told me they were concerned for my well-being. For a while, unprovoked, she made me get every teacher to sign my planner at the end of every class every day so she knew I was going. (I never skipped class in highschool. I only skipped one period once in 7th grade and learned really quickly to never do that again.) Instead of telling me how to shave my pubic hair, she made me lay in the bathroom floor, at 14 and shaved me herself. She kept track of my period (which has always been on an abnormal schedule) and, whenever it was close, she would accuse me of being pregnant, threaten me, and tell me she was going to force me to take a PT and abort my baby if I was. This happened long before I was ever thinking of sex. She randomly popped in on me in the shower OFTEN, she tried to teach me how to put a condom on with my mouth, did daily bedroom searches, checked my text messages (she would see how many were in my inbox and then go check our bill online to see how many it said I had sent and received and if they didn't match, she would beat me and take my phone and make me break up with my boyfriend). There is a lot more crazy helicopter s**t she did but this is already super long. No, we don't talk anymore. We got in a physical altercation when I was 17 and she kicked me out so I moved in with my boyfriend, married him, and had some babies. Lol.

#10

Image source: Coopersma, Greta Hoffman/Pexels (not the actual photo) Family member changed her daughter's menstrual pads until she was 17. Complete babying until she graduated from high school. Daughter so immature it made my hair hurt. Then, family member demanded child get a job and start paying some of the bills like house payment, utilities and car payment. Daughter moved out at 32.

#11

Image source: narwhal-narwhal, Kampus Production/Pexels (not the actual photo) Not really one instance, but many from the same parent. Cutting food for a 16 year old. Explaining the menu over the shoulder of said 16 year old. Using the word “pee pee "for said 16 year old. Checking his Instagram and starting a conversation about it at family dinner, of said 16 year old. This was in 2 hours, yesterday. Cringe.

#12

Image source: Transcendentalcat, Andrea Piacquadio/Pexels (not the actual photo) I knew a person who basically was so unprepared that the university basically assigned her a social worker to help her navigate life. She was brilliant but her mother made running her daughter's life her raison d'etre. Because of privacy laws the Uni couldn't legally tell the mother anything which made her go ballistic and had to be removed several times from the campus in the early morning for trying to break into the dorms. I met her in college where she was volunteering at (I worked in the office) with the life skills classes that basically helped her put her life together. She had to graduate a year late because of all the remedial work she had to do. She did her master's degree and PhD in Europe (she had citizenship through her dad) and then moved to some little village in the middle of nowhere, simply to get away from her mom. Her mom's still looking for her over a decade later, telling everyone that will listen that her father kidnapped her and is keeping her child form her.

#13

Image source: mechantmechant, Julia M Cameron/Pexels (not the actual photo) Grandma feeding 13 year old so he doesn’t have to interrupt playing his ps3.

#14

Image source: Jazzyfiendproduction, Pixabay/Pexels (not the actual photo) I knew a guy who's mother would listen in on phone calls and tell him what to say on the phone whilst he was talking to me or one of our friends. I'm talking about when landline was the norm, so he'd answer the phone, and she'd go pick up the other phone and it'd be a 3 way conversation. Literally every time i'd speak to him, it was like talking to an echo Me: "hey, do you want to come to the park today?" his mother "tell him you have to study for Tuesday's test" him: "i have to study for tuesday's test" This went on from ages 10 - 16/17. After that, everyone started to get mobile phones. From what i've seen/heard, she still comments on his every facebook photo, interrogates friends should they be foolish enough to actually visit his home and is even more protective of his sister.

#15

Image source: Dancing_Baguette_Boy, Ryan Snaadt/Pexels (not the actual photo) I was a birthday party host at a lasertag place in an upper-middle class area, and I saw ALOT of these types. This one, however, goes down as the worst helicopter parent in memory. We always let the birthday kid into the vest room first, so that they felt special and so we could make sure they knew how to play. Well when I pulled Jimmy (or whatever) into the room first, his father comes barreling up to my coworker who was blocking the door from the swarms of other tiny children waiting their turn. He’s literally yelling at the *top*of his lungs “LET ME IN THERE, THATS MY SON IN THERE!” like we were literally kidnapping him before his eyes. Once he was in he calmed down a bit and watched while the kids played tag. After the game, it was birthday cake time. I don’t know how many of y’all know about the consistency of different birthday candles but this kids cake had the s****y little “happy birthday” letter candles that melt atrociously fast. Naturally, tiny droplets of wax got all over the cake but it’s non-toxic and kids usually just don’t give a s**t, right? NOPE. Heli-dad tells me the wax is a carcinogen and that I will not serve the cake until I have removed every single bit of wax. He even sat and carefully watched me do it. I did my best, but apparently it wasn’t enough cuz he didn’t tip. Kids gonna be messed up one day :/ tl;dr Helicopter Dad thinks I want to kidnap his child and give him cancer

#16

Image source: MikeOxbigg, Karolina Grabowska/Pexels (not the actual photo) It was my mom. I love her and she's gotten much better but as the oldest, I was the trial run and I was a s**thead. So I hated high school, but got enough credits to graduate early. Usually, the graduating class got done a few days early so there were a few days of class for the underclassmen after graduation. My mom noticed a parent email from my math teacher about a missed homework assignment that she missed in her inbox the week prior.I She got this the day after I'd graduated and I was leaving to go to basic training within the week. She printed the assignment out, did the work and then asked me if I wanted to go grab a bite. Kidnapped me and drove me to the school THAT I HAD JUST GRADUATED FROM THE DAY BEFORE and demanded that I go hand in my missing assignment to see if I could get my grade bumped. Like, no b***h I will not. Never got to have that lunch either.

#17

Image source: Lostsonofpluto, Dexon Dave Silva/Pexels (not the actual photo) I work with the Pokémon Club at my university. And on numerous occasions I’ve had people unable to participate in club events because their parents took away their 3DS so they could focus on their studies. These people are in their 20s, and it’s not like it’s one person either.

#18

Image source: Hrekires, Teona Swift/Pexels (not the actual photo) Interviewed a guy fresh out of college for a job once, and *his mom* called me for a follow-up a few weeks later.

#19

Image source: cantstealthemusic, Nicole Michalou/Pexels (not the actual photo) Meet F. She is now 18, and her parents struggled to conceive for several years before finally managing to have their 'miracle child'. From the day of her birth, their lives would revolve around protecting F from any possible danger that could come to her. F was the kind of child who would cry at the slightest negative comment by a teacher, or the slightest jeer from another student. During primary school, that wasn't too out of the ordinary, but it did signify how she was a little too molly-coddled at home. She always had jam sandwiches, a mini roll, BBQ hula hoops and an orange for her lunch. Every now and then she would have a banana. She has exactly the same lunch in 2018, and the same hairstyle she had back then; an ultra long brown ponytail. For my eighth birthday we hired a bouncy castle for the garden and had all of my friends over. She was invited because yeah, she was one of my friends. However, her mother refused to leave her in the care of my parents. Instead, she insisted on staying and monitoring the party, much to the annoyance of my auntie, who wanted to some her cigarettes and chat with my mum in peace. Of course, when F bounced a little too hard on the bouncy castle and started crying, her mother was quickly there to save the day. This is what happens when you don't let your child experience little minor grievances like scraping their knee or bumping their head. They cry at anything. During middle school, we went by bus to the local high school to use their Design & Technology equipment by bus. Oh, but not F. F's father insisted on picking her up from the middle school and driving her to the high school, which was ten minutes away, just in case the bus driver had a heart attack or tried to kidnap us all. Every time she walked past the bus to get to her father's car, she would be laughed at and mocked. Now F is attending sixth form, and has an unusually close relationship with her media studies teacher. As in, she and another student are constantly in this room, acting like his personal assistant. Again, this is what happens when a child is overly-attached to their parents. They always need a parent figure. It's a pity, because F has missed out on some fantastic opportunities. The school offered her the chance to visit London for an animation course, but her parents wouldn't allow it. She also missed out on a trip to Berlin for the same reason, and will be attending a local university, despite her actually wanting to venture out into the great wide world. F has never been out with friends. She has never been to our local city without her parents. In fact, I don't think she has actually been more than 5 miles away from her parents at any given point. This is an 18 year old girl we are talking about. I hope that one day she will finally rebel and break free from her parent's control, but I doubt that will ever happen.

#20

Image source: mrcats1999, fauxels/Pexels (not the actual photo) Not the worst case, but it always baffles me when I see a 17/18 year old walk into a job interview with their parents, not to sure how common this is but I’ve seen it happen a few times.

#21

Image source: orangeprint, Porapak Apichodilok/Pexels (not the actual photo) I had a friend who's mom was extremely invasive with her friends' phones. Her mom asked if she could use my phone to book a hotel (I had data and it was 2007 so she had a slow computer) so I said yeah since you have to be "true to your word" when you're a Christian, apparently. She later comes back with my phone asking if my mom looks through my texts. I say no and she comes back with, "well she should. I just read a few of your texts and you're swearing, talking to boys, and also telling your mom to call so you have have to stay here. It's appalling" I was devastated. Being in 7th-8th grade I did swear, I didn't talk dirty to boys even though I still have conversations with them, and sometimes my friend would just be a straight up b***h and I would want an excuse to go home. I was friends with her all through high school up until my second year of college. I do miss her a little, but since I don't go to church anymore (which was drama and a half) her and my other "friends" don't want to associate with me unless I go to 20's group, a bible study, and become involved with church again. I remember they taught "spread the love of Jesus, but only stay in the "Christian" group". This doesn't speak for other churches/religions it may just be that the church is extremely exclusive with who they associate with.

#22

Image source: Blazingpegasys, Eli Burdette/Pexels (not the actual photo) I was raised in a Mormon household by the parents that were the perfect Mormons. Always volunteered for camps and conferences and anything to do with the youth group. They did this so mom could keep a paranoid eye on us. I go to college an hour away and have to update her constantly on where I am. I have to ask permission to do anything with friends several days in advance and hope she doesn't get pissy. To this day, at 22 years old, I still have a curfew. We live in the middle of nowhere. Her favorite threat is to take away my phone. My only communication with outside of buttf**k nowhere. My only way to talk to the few friends and girlfriend that actually get me. I was homeschooled all my life so that's literally the only social life I have. She calls to check on me at random times and I better answer otherwise she freaks out and I hear about it for days. Last time I slept through my alarm and woke up to my grandmother having broke into the house to scream at me. (Mom was staying with her that night.). She monitored my average mph for several months and would bring it up if it was even slightly high. I've never been allowed to go to any sort of event with my friends that wasn't some churchy b******t. And even then she had to chaperone. Constantly reminds me and bro to not have sex with anyone before marriage. I've been on exactly 1 date... that she knows of. Powerpuff girls, Pokemon, KND, SpongeBob SquarePants, and Rugrats were all banned from our TVs. Songs had to be pre-approved to be put on MP3 players. I always felt left out of pop culture. I didn't get a phone until I was 17. When she didn't like how my best friend and I were talking, she banned me to three messages to her per day. And those messages had to be pre-approved before sending. She still threatens to read my messages occasionally. I have never tried alcohol, never went to a non-mormon prom (dateless prom doesn't count, it's lame and you all know it), only once got to go to a slumber party that wasn't within 3 minutes, and she made it extremely painful when I was trying to sign the lease to an apt. God I can't wait to move out.

#23

Image source: anon, JÉSHOOTS/Pexels (not the actual photo) Idk, the Mom who came and ate lunch with her sons and sat in class with them until they were in 8th grade, and broke through a police barrier during a lockdown to get to her son is definitely up there. The dad who came to every single cross country and track and field practice, prohibited his daughter from talking with other athletes, and coached her and exclusively her at practice until the administration told him to f-off is a close tie. When said administration told him to stop he verbally and physically assaulted the school Athletic director and immediately switched his daughter to a different school. Idk man.

#24

Image source: cdub2046, RDNE Stock project/Pexels (not the actual photo) I was coaching a high school wrestling team. Every week we’d have wrestle offs for the varsity spot. Well this one week a kid who barely had people in his weigh class wrestled off against a new transfer to the school. He lost. After the match was awarded he went to the bathroom to cry it out. Not five minutes later a minivan screeches in to the parking lot. I look outside and here comes the losers mom. She entered the room and demanded a meeting with the coaches. We told her it wasn’t going to happen we were in the middle of practice. She stormed out and went to the principle. He explained that we would all be meeting after practice. After practice the show down began. We pulled out our team standards and practices paper work of which she and her son had signed. This was enough for the principal so he left. The mom spent the next 20 minutes arguing that her some deserved the spot more for a bunch of b******t reasons. So we suggested another wrestle off the next day( we knew he was going to get his a*s kicked again, the new guy was really good) and suggested she come watch. The next day she was there the whole practice and watched her son get worked. A few years later I quit coaching.That was my first intro to helicopter parents and won’t be my last.

#25

Image source: elmundio87, Ellie Burgin/Pexels (not the actual photo) My MIL planned to accompany my wife and I on our honeymoon, without our knowledge. Thankfully we’d already asked her to check in on our hamster while we were gone, so her plans were scuppered. We only found out about this “plan” after we returned home, she seriously didn’t see why we wouldn’t want her to come with us.