Had this person asked his mother to call you? Some parents can be interfering busybodies without the children wanting them to. Still not something you should have to deal with, I'm just wondering.

I've been very lucky and have had pretty much no adverse contact with parents at all, but I did see one last year pitch a major fit about her daughter's Fs. I'd've been more sympathetic if she'd seemed to care in, say, December, rather than June.

Can you stockpile some now, sj? I say that as a person who wandered from grocery store to grocery store buying the last of the fragrance-free Dawn.

My supplier only has so much left, so they're sending me what they can and what my insurance will cover, which may last me a couple months, then that's it.

Had this person asked his mother to call you? Some parents can be interfering busybodies without the children wanting them to.

Yeah, like the time my mom tried to terminate my lease for me.

It's so weird to read about the apparent rise in kids calling home, when I've tried to do it as little as possible ever since I went to college.

I have no idea if the person asked his mother to call me, and to be honest I don't care. If he didn't, well, then he can deal with his mother causing him to lose a job. At the end of the day, that end of it is very far from being my problem. At minimum she somehow got my phone number.

My summer job through college was at the bindery in the printing plant where my dad had worked for over 25 years. If I missed a day, he was all over my ass. I once got an attendance warning for calling in too much and he told me that he didn't care how hung over I was, I would get up and go to work--I could barf on my breaks.

Needless to say, I never got another warning. Hefting JC Penny catalogs in a 100 degree warehouse for 12 hours while hung over SUCKS BALLS.

I finally got back to the gym tonight after vacation and I hate to admit that it felt GREAT. I didn't do a lot--just a bit of swimming. But the whirlpool and steam room, I missed. A lot.

I would have been mortified if my mother called anyone about my "excessive work load" during undergrad, let alone grad school!

If my parents had done that, it would have been because I was physically unable to do so. Like, had a car accident and on the operating table physically unable.

It's so weird to read about the apparent rise in kids calling home, when I've tried to do it as little as possible ever since I went to college.

I kept in touch fairly regularly in college. Quite a bit by letter because each Tulane dorm room had its own telephone. The drawback -- You couldn't call long distance from the room. I tended to write letters, and the parents called me periodically.

Here's the thing, it WAS a hard schedule.

Complaining about a hard schedule? Only for a damn good reason. Examples:

"I'm getting married that day."

"The doctor won't let me come back to work for another two weeks."

You get the idea. And as for a parent doing the calling, only because of physical incapacity. See above.

I just got an e-mail from Lush telling me that the Atlanta store opens next Thursday. I'm doomed. At least I'll be doomed without having to pay postage.

When I was in college, I called my parents close to every day. Certainly never more than once a day, unless one of them was something like "I just picked up my mail, and I got accepted for that internship! Gotta go to class now, I'll tell you more tonight." Now, I call a few times a week, I guess.

My mother never called or emailed one of my professors. I would have been mortified if she had. I've gotten a few calls and emails from my students' parents, though.

In college, my parents paid for my tuition, housing, food, and books. Junior and senior year I dropped out of meal plan, so my parents put the money that they would have spent on that onto a debit card that I could only use for food. I worked during the summers and tutored during the school year, and senior year I was also a grader for a calculus class.

The "helicopter parents at the office" article: [link]

One thing I've seen a lot of my students doing, and it drives me absolutely nuts, is, when they're at my office hours or meeting with me for help with the classwork, if their cell phone rings, they'll pick it up and tell whoever's calling, "Yeah, I'm meeting with my math TA now, I'll call you back later." This is what voicemail is for! I've had to institute "if your cell phone rings during class, then unless it's a dire emergency, you are not allowed to answer it" rules in my classes, because apparently people don't know this.

(I had a cell phone in college. The only times I ever answered it during class were in the few days after September 11 when I was still waiting on the "they're OK" message on a few people, and once when my mom was in the hospital. All those times, I made a point of sitting near the classroom door because I knew I was expecting a call, and when the phone rang, I went out into the hallway to talk for a minute, then came back into class, and when class was over, I apologized to the professor for disrupting the class. I've had students in my class just sit at their desks and take a call.)