I have some thoughts about this from media girl and Steve Gilliard (via Atrios).

First from this article (yes, registration required):

Last fall when my Arlington high school senior finally got the nerve to tell me that he’d gotten a C in the first quarter of his AP English class, I did what any self-respecting, grade-obsessed parent whose son is applying to college would do. I cried. Then I e-mailed his teacher and made an appointment for the three of us to meet. My son’s teacher was accommodating. She agreed that if my son did A work for the second quarter, colleges would see a B average for the two quarters, not that ruinous C.

There’s a term for the legions of parents like me. The parents who make sure to get the teacher’s e-mail and home phone number on Back to School Night. The kind who e-mail teachers when their child fails a quiz. The kind who apply the same determination to making sure their child excels academically that they apply to the professional world.

We are called "helicopter parents" because we hover over everything our kids do like Secret Service agents guarding the president. (My son refers to me as an Apache attack helicopter, and he’s Fallujah under siege.) Only we aren’t worried about our kids getting taken out by wild-eyed assassins. We just want them to get into a "good" (whatever that means) college.

Yes, I had a kid who spent, pretty much, his entire school life in the Gifted and Talented Program (now going by the wayside in so many places, thanks to No Child Left Behind). I don't think I was a "helicopter parent". I never paid for Jimmy's A's (Jesus God, I couldn't afford them!). I never pressured him to make A's. My concern was that he was doing the best that he could, and not screwing off. As long as he was doing the best he could, grades didn't matter to me. I made sure he did his homework. Of course the older he got, the answer I got, more often than not, was "I did it - or will do it - at school". And it got done later and later. And until his Senior year, his grades were stellar.

But I have to admit, once he was in high school and taking the hard classes (for the most part), I developed stars in my eyes. My dad went to Southwestern State university (now Southwestern Oklahoma State University) in Weatherford, OK. He learned to fly. I went to Oscar Rose Junior College (now Rose State College), in Midwest City, OK, but didn't finish. I saw boundless opportunity. I scoured colleges all over the nation. I was happy. I was proud. At first, my son just assumed he'd go to college. I knew he didn't have to have a major at first. But I guess not knowing what he was going to do really threw Jimmy for a loop. It got to a point where I couldn't help him, I wouldn't actually choose his college. I got really frustrated about his nonaction. Deadline after deadline passed with nothing happening. I was getting more frustrated and angry. But how could I explain to him that my anger and frustration weren't with him, per se, but the situation? I always thought I would go back to college, but I never did. My sister ( who has a brilliant mind) had babies (too) early, and had to be in the workforce to provide for them.

Life gets in the way. You have a family to provide for. Money is tight. Time is precious. And then it slips by. Did I explain any of this to my son? No. I told him (rather forcefully) he wasn't a loser, and he had to do something. He joined the Navy. I can't say that I'm happy, I would have preferred he went to college, but it will give him the direction he needed.

All-in-all, I never felt like a good mother, because I wasn't the "helicopter" mom. I don't have alot of pictures of my son, because I couldn't afford them. I didn't save every last little award he ever won. There were the years I was happy he qualified for lunches at a reduced price, because otherwise it would be peanut butter. Oh, and though he was Mr. Social at school, at home all I got about school was "fine". So, I would ask, "Is there anything I have to look at?" At teachers conferences, teachers would gush and talk about all he did in school. And I would have the surprised/confused/I am such a bad mother look on my face, because I didn't have a clue.

But maybe I was ok, after all.

Oh, and if I had ever found out Jimmy whined and moaned to get a deserved lower grade raised, I would kick his ass. Yeah, that would never have happened. Jimmy's teachers adored him.

OH, and according to Steve Gilliard, I only have a couple of readers, because I'm not that good a writer. I'll have to second that.