It's out there. Coming from my time as a middle school teacher, the most egregious example of overparenting I've witnessed was not one of my students, but a student-teacher that I was mentoring and had to fail. The student-teacher, a 23 year old girl, exhibited the following signs of overparenting: 1. Her parents called her 4 of 5 days of the week to make sure she had ate her sandwich and to see if she liked it. 2. She had her head down down on her desk sleeping one day before school. When asked about it, she replied, "My Mom made me take some cold medicine today. It might be the kind that makes me sleepy". 3. When she was falling behind in her duties, showing up late, coming unprepared, dressing inappropriately (the young boys didn't mind this), who called me to give her a second chance? Yep. Her parents.
Poor kid. I hear stories like this and it makes me want to call my mom and dad to thank them for being hard-asses when I was growing up. 11 years old? You are now learning how to cook, clean and do laundry. 13? Time to get a job mowing lawns/paper route/something to bring in money. 18? Out of the house. If they did this now someone would probably want them in jail for child abuse.
Whoever those are, screw them good and leave them unattended in a dark alley. Your parents did very well as far as personal responsibility and self-sustainancer are concerned.If they did this now someone would probably want them in jail for child abuse.