--- title: College Etiquette Tips for Helicopter Parents… from 1925 description: Helicopter parents are hardly a new phenomenon at colleges. In fact, even a future U.S. President had one. authors: - name: Greg Daugherty url: https://money.com/author/greg-daugherty/ at_money_since: 2015 articles: 22 covers: - Education - Business - Economy and Politics - Lifestyle - Personal Finance former_staff: true published: '2015-12-11T11:00:32.000Z' modified: '2024-04-16T09:19:24.000Z' section: Education tags: - College - College Students - colleges - Etiquette - helicopter parents - Parents word_count: 302 canonical: https://money.com/college-etiquette-tips-for-helicopter-parents-from-1925/ type: Article source: structured-blocks --- > **Disclosure:** We research all brands listed and may earn a fee from our partners. Research and financial considerations may influence how brands are displayed. Not all brands are included. [Learn more](https://money.com/page/disclaimer/). ![Mrs. James Roosevelt gives her son, Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt, some motherly advice at their estate in Hyde Park, New York, October 18, 1932. Mrs. Roosevelt was the "First Mother of the United States,” and was the only living mother of a president for about a decade.](https://img.money.com/2015/12/151211_coll_helicopterparents.jpg?crop=0px%2C84px%2C2100px%2C1181px&quality=85) *Franklin D. Roosevelt with his mother, Sara Delano Roosevelt, a pioneering helicopter parent.* Today’s college administrators may think of [helicopter parents](https://time.com/3904527/helicopter-parent-study-controlling-students-kids-children/) as a recent nuisance. But it turns out they’re hardly a new phenomenon on campus. In fact, they seem to predate the flying machine that gives them their name. A [1925 guide to college etiquette](https://archive.org/details/etiquetteatcolle00ball) observed that, “It is a temptation to parents who have gone to college to accompany their children when the latter enter. If they yield to this friendly impulse, their stay should be entirely social. It is better for them to take lodgings in town and come to the campus only as visiting alumni.” Alas, that wise advice came too late for such students as the future President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the future World War II General Douglas MacArthur, and the future Democratic presidential candidate Adlai Stevenson. Their mothers not only accompanied them to college ([Harvard](https://money.com/best-colleges/), West Point, and [Princeton](https://money.com/best-colleges/) respectively) but took up residence there during the lads' undergraduate years. MacArthur’s mother was said to have chosen a hotel room from which she could see the light in her son’s dorm window. Stevenson’s mom was known to drop by his room to collect his dirty laundry, much, apparently, to his embarrassment. [![Best college education image](https://content.money.com/wp-content/themes/money2018/img/college-site-banner-01.png)](https://best-colleges.time.com/money/search-colleges/?xid=cm-mcpTop200Widget) The etiquette book continued that, “In all academic matters, it is for the student to see to his own registration, interviews with faculty members, and entering classes, and to take his chances unaided and on an equal basis with the others who have come to school alone.” As to when parents might want to visit, the author suggested “after the student is settled and can find his way about—perhaps by Thanksgiving time…. Thus they carry away the memory of an alert, capable student who is a real personage, instead of the dazed, uncertain newcomer of a few weeks before. 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