Lenient parents, I blame you These two stories are unfathomable, and I've been torturing my colleagues by reading these excerpts aloud and shrieking, "Can you believe this?" A generation ago, adult children visiting their parents' homes might have left with a Tupperware container of lasagna. Today, many of them stealthily make off with toiletries, groceries, sometimes clothing and even furniture. It is an apparently widespread practice, born of a sense of entitlement among young adults - and usually amusedly tolerated by parents - that gives new meaning to the phrase "home shopping." Like most adults, the pilferers have set up their own households, but they seem not to have given up the expectation that their parents should provide for them in certain ways. They loot their parents' houses to cut costs, or because they would rather not pay for incidentals. -- "It's the Kids! Lock up the China!" NYT, July 28, 04 Campus officials say they're seeing a growing number of freshmen lacking basic skills -- negotiating for what they need, getting along with others in a shared space, using common sense to stay safe, and solving their own problems. Administrators prefer that students pick their own majors and courses. At California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, Calif., last week, a mother showed up -- without her son -- to register him for classes and meet with his academic adviser, says Andrene Kaiwi-Lenting, the university's orientation director. She intercepted the mother and urged her to leave and let her son come alone later; "there's going to be a time when he needs to do this on his own," she says she told the mother. But the woman said her son was traveling and refused to be dissuaded. -- "Tucking the Kids In -- in the Dorm: Colleges Ward Off Overinvolved Parents," WSJ, July 28, 05 If you excuse me, I have to go e-mail my mother and thank her for being absolutely unlike any of the parents here. And then I have to shiver in dread as I await the inevitable day when a coworker sends in Mommy to negotiate a raise. Posted at 09:11 in Anecdotal | Permalink