College recommendation letters should ideally come from someone who knows the applicant well — someone who can speak to strengths, weaknesses, hidden triumphs, and personal ambitions. Who better than mom or dad?

There are a lot of reasons why recommendation letters from parents might not seem like a good idea. That whole bias thing, for one. But an increasing number of colleges (including Smith College, the University of Richmond, and Holy Cross) allow parents to submit letters on behalf of their children. While the letters are optional, they’re proving to be popular; admissions officials at Smith estimate that nearly half of all applicants included a parental recommendation.

And though it may seem counterintuitive, the admissions team has found that parents are sometimes the best ones for giving an honest portrayal of their child. While teachers and coaches may be overwhelmed by recommendation requests and provide a letter that’s not much more than standardized praise, parents are writing only one letter. And it’s for someone they know quite well. “You might think they do nothing but brag,” said Deb Shaver, Smith’s director of admission. “But parents really nail their kids. They really get to the essence of what their daughter is about in a way we can’t get anywhere else.”

Some have objected to the parental letter practice by saying that it “advantages the advantaged,” in that lower-income applicants (especially families where English isn’t spoken at home) might be dissuaded from penning a glowing letter, and thus at a disadvantage. But Smith has found ingenious ways around that problem. Shaver remembers one parent who drove several hours to campus to give his recommendation in person, because he wasn’t comfortable writing in English.

And perhaps most importantly, the practice allows parents to feel like they’re a part of the college application race. They sing their children’s praises directly at the admissions committee and not feel like overbearing weirdos. And the heartfelt letters become family mementos in some cases. (No one’s going to read their senior-year chemistry teacher’s recommendation in ten years and start crying.)

Would you write a recommendation for your kids? Or would you want your parents to write one for you?

Today, parents are far less likely to use spanking to discipline their children than were parents of previous generations. Megan McArdle of The Atlantic links the decline in corporal punishment as a parenting technique to a general increase in parental supervision, which facilitated a move from the belt (which delivers “swift punishment for detected wrongdoings”) to the gold star (which requires being constantly on the look-out for good behavior).

But is this new, intensive form of parenting (with an emphasis on greater monitoring and incentivized behaviors) actually better for our kids? McArdle notes parenthetically that employers complain that young workers are too entitled, and struggle in the absence of structure. But what if we have moral issues with corporal punishment? Is there a way to effectively parent with neither the belt nor the gold star?

As far as new buzzwords go, “boomerang kids” sounds catchy, but doesn’t begin to encompass the complexity of 20- and 30-somethings who move back home — or the parents who are their new roommates.  Yesterday’s Diane Rehm Show featured Maryland psychotherapist Linda Gordon, Washington Post advice columnist Katherine Newman, and Johns Hopkins Dean Katherine Newman talking about just this issue. They put a face to individuals living in this boomerang world, and some of them aren’t what you would expect.  A few types:

• The parents who suddenly find their empty nest full again.  When we talk about kids moving back in with their parents, we tend to focus on the younger generation.  But having children move back home is rough on parents, too — especially if they’d been enjoying the time along… not to mention the extra financial freedom.

• The “adult roommates.” Here’s one thing that previous generations never said:  “My parents are my best friends.” When a son or daughter moves back home, that best friend becomes a roommate.  The tricky thing is defining roles and boundaries for adults living together — who are also family members. Should your kid pay rent? Is it okay for your son to drink in the house? Is it okay for him to bring his friends over to drink? Is it okay for him to get really drunk?

• The ambitious intern.  Katherine Newman notes that the path to a middle class career is longer and more expensive than ever. Young people are racking up Master’s degrees and unpaid internships just to try and get a foot in the door. And living with parents makes this much more feasible. For these kids, moving back home is hardly a lazy move; it’s allowing the family to provide shelter in challenging economic times.

• The “failure to launch” case. Carolyn Hax points out that tough economic times make it tough on everyone — and toughest on the marginal cases.  Young people struggling with depression, substance abuse, or other issues “would’ve been able to get a foothold on their own, even struggling” in the past, Hax notes,  “But now it’s like, forget it.”

Ron Clark was named “American Teacher of the Year” and — more importantly — was anointed by Oprah as a “phenomenal man.” He clearly loves teaching kids. And he hates parents.

Well, while that might be overstating his case, Clark does have some pretty harsh words for a certain kind of problematic parent, the type who cause more trouble than their children.  He recounts a series of stories of parents bringing lawyers for meetings with teachers; parents calling the media to berate teachers who are just doing their jobs; no wonder, then, that today’s new teachers remain in the job for an average of only 4.5 years, and that many list “issues with parents” as a reason they leave the profession.

So what does Clark want parents to remember? Nothing too revolutionary:  that teachers are educators, not baby-sitters; that making excuses for your child’s behavior helps no one; that being grade-obsessed sends the wrong message. All of which sounds eminently reasonable. Not surprisingly, though, he gets attacked in the comment section of his story (everything from “Why should I believe a teacher at face value and not my own child?” to “Are you a moron, or are you trully as ignorant as you sound?”).

So Baltimore teachers, city and county, private and public, give us your horror stories anonymously and we’ll print them.  Consider it a favor to you and to parents! (Hey, we don’t want a bad reputation.)  Contact us at info@baltimorefishbowl.com or write your story in the comments below. 

Teachers:  any horror stories? Who’s the most frustrating parent you’ve ever had to deal with?

Last week we considered private school admissions, and the anxiety it inspires in parents. For many families, though, all that stress (and money) is worth it, because small, supportive schools nurture students, giving them rigorous, individual preparation for their future college education. But can these students be too supported — too “cocooned,” as one expert puts it?

It turns out that some college counselors are starting to think this might be the case. In today’s “error-averse culture,“students aren’t learning how to make mistakes, so any setback — a rejection from a first-choice school; a botched interview — feels like a complete and utter disaster. Not getting into an Ivy League school may truly be the worst thing that ever happened to these students, so no wonder they sometimes react to rejection as though the very foundations of the earth are being shaken.

In a recent controversial article in the Atlantic, “How to Land Your Kid in Therapy,” Lori Gottlieb argues a similar point — that today’s parents are too good at supporting their kids and shielding them from unhappiness. According to Gottlieb, these children grow up to be young adults who have great relationships with their parents — but an inability to cope with the normal disappointments of life.

So how do we raise kids to feel supported — but to be independent, too?

It makes a certain kind of logic:  if you’re going to send your kid to a school that costs $40,000, you may as well try your hardest to get her into the best school that costs $40,000, whatever that takes. Consider including professional headshots of your toddler sporting a bow-tie, and/or including a letter of recommendation from a member of Congress. Or maybe you’d be better off with some good old-fashioned lying and manipulation.

Such is the twisted logic of New York private school admissions, which gets a satirical take from filmmaker Josh Shelov (and stars Neil Patrick Harris and Amy Sedaris) in The Best and the Brightest, which opens this week. “I was eager to write something deeply uncensored,” Shelov told the Wall Street Journal. In making the film, he drew on his experiences finding a school for his own kindergartener five years ago. Unlike his film’s characters, Shelov presumably didn’t invent a more intriguing persona to make himself appealing to elite schools. (Neil Patrick Harris’ character pretends to be “a renowned poet with a forthcoming collection culled from sexually explicit text messages.” He is actually a computer programmer.)

All in all, the movie makes it clear that the admissions process is hardest on the parents. Shelov remembers being plagued by “a general feeling of paranoia that begins to settle in, an atmosphere of ‘you’re not doing enough.’ ” Does this high-stakes, cutthroat world look familiar to you in any way? Or do we just do things differently here in Baltimore?