New words enter our lexicon all the time.
Remember when "Girl Power" was all the rage?
Or "dotcom," "millennium bug" and "metrosexual"?
Well, here's a new one for your vocab, kids: "smother mothers."
Smother mothers are the parents who, like all parents, want the best for their kids. Unlike most parents, SMs (misleading acronym, I know) want to make sure their kids get the best out of life by doing everything for them. It's not even a typical "stage mother" deal, where all they do is live vicariously through their children to prove that they really could become Miss Castle Hill Showgirl.
No, no, no: it's about making sure their kids never, ever do anything without them.
Ever.
This led me to wonder - surely there must come a time when smother mothers (non-gender specific term: SMs can be dads, too..."smother father" just doesn't have the same ring to it) learn to let go of their kids, so they can fall flat on their faces like everyone else.
Apparently not.
Consider the case of the Richards' family, old friends of my own family.
To the untrained eye, the Richards' seem like a nice, normal family from the suburbs. Dad (Michael) is an accountant who moonlights in a 70s cover band, Mum (Kerryn) is a school teacher. Eldest son Dean studies architecture, and his younger brother, Sam, is currently studying for the HSC.
Dean and Sam are seemingly old enough to do most things by themselves, for themselves. Indeed, by the time some people have reached Dean's age (21) they are married with kids. And even though Sam hasn't finished high school yet, he drives his own car, has a casual job and next year, he'll be at uni like Dean.
But even though these boys are essentially adults, Kerryn and Michael insist on "helping" them in every facet of their lives. Michael allegedly "enjoys" completing Dean's architecture assignments, and looks forward to receiving his (generally successful) results. Kerryn intercepts Sam's HSC assessments before he can attempt them, because she "wants to make sure they're done properly."
On Valentine's Day this year, Dean wanted to treat his girlfriend to a special night out. Fittingly, Kerryn booked a table for two at a swanky restaurant, bought Dean a new shirt, ordered flowers to be sent to the girlfriend's home and rang Dean twice during the evening, to ensure her plans hadn't gone awry.
Am I alone in thinking this behaviour is crazy? How can these kids be expected to survive in the "real world"? What happens when the boys leave home (if, indeed, they are ever allowed to)? I imagine it wouldn't be out of place for Kerryn and Michael to arrange the boys' brides, weddings and honeymoons. Hell, they might even go long for the honeymoon, "just to make sure they're done properly."
The good thing about SMs is that they make our own parents, however neurotic they might be, seem like saints. Yes Mum, I even forgive you for ringing me two hours after I'd left home for a big night out to ask me if I was wearing your perfume.
Even though we might complain about our workloads, and the crappy jobs we have to put up with to pay our fees and our rent, most of us are independent, learning to live like "adults" and even better, we'll graduate with degrees we actually deserve.