They do Junior’s homework for him to ensure he passes. When Junior gets into trouble in school, they rush right to his side and defend him to the death since the teacher, principal, or victimized student is obviously lying just to get Junior into trouble. If Junior makes it to college, they’re the ones who will call Junior’s math professor and demand in screaming tones to know why Junior can’t be specially accommodated to take the test he missed twice on the instructor’s day off or why he didn't deserve an A for his sparkingly half-assed project effort.

The group of aforementioned individuals is known as helicopter parents, and they are the ones who feel they need to spoon-feed their children even when they’re out in college and trying to discover themselves. But little do these parents know that saving Junior’s ass every time something goes awry is only making his chances of becoming a well-rounded adult grow smaller and smaller.

Think about it – if Mommy and Daddy are bailing Junior out of failed grades for late assignments or for poorly written essays, the kid is gathering that he can depend on his parents to dig him out of the shit he’s sunk himself into. This is okay when the kid is 16, but when he’s a legal adult and needs to begin thinking for himself, these idiot parents are only encouraging juvenile behavior and inhibiting their child’s ability to mature.

This goes way, way beyond the typical concern of parents about their children in college. Maybe it’s a control issue and the parents like having some kind of control over their kid since they couldn’t control when Junior screamed at night as a baby and woke them. Maybe they aren’t ready to let their child go; this is an especially large problem with only children or when the youngest finally leaves the nest. But when a kid has had his battles fought for him his entire life, he’s not going to be able to adjust to real life and he’s going to end up going batshit crazy because he won’t be able to figure out how to function on his own – he’ll have a mental overload.

This doesn't stop at schoolwork either. Many helicopter parents will go so far as to dictate who their child can and cannot date, what classes they can take in college, demanding to know their child's college friends so they can research them on the famed Facebook to see if they're 'good kids', editing their child's MySpace...the list trails.

Some kids need to go to community college just so they can be close enough to home so Mommy can do their laundry and cook their meals for them. If the kid gets a job, Mommy will be calling the kid's boss to tell them when the kid can and cannot work, or to bitch Junior's employer out for not paying the kid eleventy billion dollars an hour, which is what Mommy feels is a good enough salary for her pweshus.

To any lurking parents who think you’re doing your child a favor by policing everything they do and screaming at their teachers for failed projects – you are in no way aiding your child’s development and you may end up raising someone who drops out of college because they are too incapable of doing things for themselves, even small things like making their own meals or getting to class on time.

So, unless you want your kid to still be living with you when he’s 40, then just go on and keep protecting him…you better have it arranged before you die for someone to be there to wipe Junior’s ass because he sure won’t know what to do once you’re gone. Please do everyone a favor and let him or her do some stuff on their own.