I had to re-read this because I couldn’t believe my eyes – an Emory University student’s mother calling a Wall Street firm to reconsider her child’s rejected internship? And this was after the student had missed a sitdown session and canceled a phone interview.

Today’s Atlanta Journal Constitution enumerates the hyper-hovering of baby boomer parents over their offspring. It cites examples of parents attending job interviews, asking questions during the MBA candidate breakfast, and following up with the child’s employer. Their children, born between 1982 and 2002 are referred to as the millenials.

Have these people gone mad? I am trying to imagine my father going with me on a job interview. Or even my mother (who was a slightly hovering soul.) I’m trying to image what my employers would think if my parents had called to check on my interview or benefits package. And I definitely can’t fathom doing this with my own children.

But apparently the trend is growing. In a survey of parents of college students conducted by the College Parents of America found that 30 percent of parents who belong to their group communicate daily with their college children, and that 73 percent communicate with them at least two or three times a week. Cellphones are to blame. Even my mother, who I considered to be grossly overprotective, called me only once a week. (The price of long distance was her motivation for less frequent calling, I’m sure.) Over 80% of these parents recognized that they were more involved in their college kids’ lives than their parents were when they were in college.

This begs many questions from me. The first is: Don’t you have anything else to do? Am I the only one who thinks that when my children go off to college, although I’ll miss them, I will find other things to fill my day? And given the recent college shootings, I’ll have more to worry about with them gone, but still!!! Yet I also know I will likely use the convenience of cellphones and emails to just stay in touch more than the weekly call my mom placed to me.

Still, as I drive Kay around town waiting in the car as she searches for summer work, I realize that I am not a helicopter at all. And this is a good thing, even if she tires of me making her do it herself. Nothing good comes from hovering over your kids and saving them in every situation. They grow up overindulged, with huge entitlement chips on their shoulders and unable to do anything for themselves.

And by the time they’ve completed college they should be able to go on a job interview all on their own, shouldn’t they?

You Might be a Helicopter Parents if you…

• drive your son or daughter to a job interview, then try to sit in on it.
• Call you son or daughter’s prospective employer to find out the status of the job offer, reschedule or set up the job interview, or inquire about benefits or why your child didn’t get the job.
• Show up at any of your son or daughter’s student- or job-related functions.
• Camp out in your son or daughter’s dorm room during student orientation week.
• Accompany your child to the registrar’s office and select his or her classes.
• Wind up arguing with the registrar about why your daughter can’t take an 8 a.m. class.

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Anna Ivey & Andrea Hershatter are experts in the topic of helicopter parents and compiled the list above for the AJC article.