I had to force myself not to helicopter but fortunately I didn’t have the resources nor the personality type needed for this snowplow thing. It’s not new by the way. I went back to school as an adult. My advisor once told me, during a casual conversation, about getting calls from parents complaining about this one especially tough professor. That was in the late 90s.

Anyway it’s a good thing I didn’t have those resources or that personally type because my daughter has had to pick herself up, dust herself off and get back at the business of adulting more than once — flunking out of a program, being fired — and each time she managed to not just survive but emerge in better shape — scholastically, economically. Who knew?