14-Jan-2012 - Occupy squalor: the ultimate test for helicopter parents

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They are now sleeping under tarps, in the mud, rain and frigid temperatures, in an encampment that is home to an epic urban rat infestation. And their new neighbors are a sizable portion of the nation’s hard-core homeless population. Next week hordes of them plan to Occupy Congress, a protest that could spark confrontations with the U.S. Capitol Police and lead to arrests. They eat donated or dumpster-scavenged food — peanut butter, bread and doughnuts (sorry, Hostess, no Twinkies) were lunch the other NHL jerseys supply day — or they may even go on a hunger strike.Take that, helicopter parents.These are the mothers and fathers who demanded laws for bike helmets, car seats and warning labels on every plastic bag and bucket in the universe. They had the home number of every teacher from preschool to college. And they’ve even been known to call up their grown kids’ new bosses after junior didn’t get a promotion.But what happens when these highly groomed offspring go off and join the hundreds living in the Occupy movements camps? To whom do you file a complaint? Who gets the irate phone call?“She still keeps asking me to come home. I get the calls. And the texts. Every day,” answered one 18-year-old Occupier in D.C.’s McPherson Square. The camps are full of a wide range of ages and socioeconomic backgrounds, sure. But the movement’s biggest population and primary strategists are the twentysomething Millennials NFL JERSEYS forever burdened with their parents’ insistence on participation trophies for every team member.So now the Occuparents find themselves struggling with whether to support their child’s participation in a sweeping, political protest movement and the fact that their cul-de-sac kids are living in total squalor. Sam Jewler, one of the four protesters who staged a dramatic hunger strike in the name of D.C. voting rights , fasted for 11 days — until his parents nagged him into eating.His dad, Chevy Chase resident Leonard Jewler, was featured in a Marc Fisher blog post years ago when he tried to answer parental school angst with a data analysis of whether kids from D.C. public schools ascend to the same caliber of colleges as kids who went to private schools. After enough carping from the ’rents, young Jewler said he broke his fast last month with a glass of coconut juice and a bowl of miso broth. “I was feeling pretty much the same way I was the last week, but my parents were becoming increasingly distressed,” Jewler told buy NFL Jerseys The Post’s Tim Craig. “I didn’t feel like it was fair anymore to put that burden on them.”Eat. EAT!On Wednesday, the protesters had a chance to do some of that nurturing themselves, when they found a baby wearing nothing but a onesie and mittens in one of the tents and called authorities. The father was arrested, and the baby was handed over to District child protective services. Not exactly a helicopter dad, right?

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