How parents impact students' success

A new book  by Sociologist Laura Hamilton "on how family matters for college women's success argues that four-year public institutions are increasingly dependent on active -- and wealthy -- parents, and that can harm students with less-involved parents," according to Inside Higher Ed.

Dr. Hamilton identifies varieties of "helicopter parents": the professional parents, who focus on fostering their kids' careers v. the "pink" parents who want their daughters to marry wealthy men.

Concerns about over-parenting resulted not long ago in a TIME Magazine cover story (above).  The term "helicopter parent" has earned a substantial entry in Wikipedia, as well.  Having grown up in a small Pennsylvania town in the 1950s, I can appreciate the point.  During the summers Mom would remind us to be back in time for dinner.  Beyond that, we were on our own to roam the woods, bike the highways and byways, build club houses and raid those of our "enemies," and generally do as we pleased.  This freedom probably did make us more independent than our contemporary counterparts coming to our campuses today.

But I believe there are worse things than over-parenting.  And one of them is the opposite: under- (or none-) parenting.  The disintegration of the American family is a phenomenon all too prevalent today, especially in our poorest communities.  In West Philadelphia and neighboring Upper Darby, for example, it's not unusual to find one-parent families.  It's not rare to encounter families in which one or both parent(s) is/are or was/were incarcerated.  It's far from unknown that a grandparent is raising the children.

In such households, there is little time or inclination to socialize the toddlers for kindergarten.  Few little tikes get read to regularly.  Pre-kindergarten programs have disappeared.  These kids arrive in their school districts from ground-zero.  Many of them will never catch up with their more affluent, "over-parented" contemporaries.

And to my mind, this is the more significant problem we face as educators and concerned citizens.