Looking For a Good Time?

By TChris, Section Crime in the News
Posted on Fri May 08, 2009 at 08:19:32 PM EST
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When alleged criminal behavior is compared to an episode of Desperate Housewives, it must be worthy of a TalkLeft mention. Margery Tannenbaum of Haupage, New York was angered by an unspecified dispute between her daughter and her neighbor's daughter. Whether Tannenbaum is less mature or no more mature than her 9-year-old daughter is unclear. It is clear that her decision to take revenge upon the neighbor by posting an ad in the "casual encounters" section of Craiglist was childish. The ad said "Looking for a good time? w4m21" followed by her neighbor's telephone number. Why not just phone in a few prank pizza delivery orders and let it go at that?

After taking 22 calls from men looking for a good time, the neighbor may have been desperate for a new telephone number. Revenge begets revenge, as Tannenbaum learned when the police arrested her for aggravated harassment.

If Tannenbaum thought she was standing up for her daughter, her strategy backfired. At this point, Tannenbaum's daughter must be mortified by her mother's existence.

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Looking For a Good Time? | 24 comments (24 topical)

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I can't imagine what could have (5.00 / 0) (#7)
by Anne on Fri May 08, 2009 at 11:03:00 PM EST

happened between two 9-yr old children that would make a normal parent behave so badly.

But I suspect Margery is one of those parents who is waaaaay too involved in her children's lives, to the point where she could just not permit her child to suffer even one sling or one arrow or have one sad, angry or disappointed moment; that is a nine-year old who is on her way to having no life of her own because Mommy has to be part of every second of it.

Don't get me wrong - I'm not suggesting that parents shouldn't know who their kids are with, and generally what they're doing, but I know parents who, if they could, would crawl into their children's heads to make sure they knew absolutely everything so they could have ultimate control over their kids; I don't know how kids do not end up feeling like they are suffocating.

And I have seen, firsthand, with a family member's children, the lengths kids like this can then go to just to have something that Mommy and/or Daddy don't know about. And how they shut them out emotionally just to keep their parents out of their heads.

I work with a woman who managed to get the password to her (now 21 yrs old) daughter's Facebook account so she wouldn't miss a moment of her daughter's experiences at college - apparently, the kid could travel from the east coast to the midwest, but Mommy still needed to know everything. If her daughter knew that Mommy was printing pictures from that FB account and passing them around the office, she would die.

These are women who are not content to be mothers - they also have to be their child's best friend - and they get jealous when their child wants her own friends.

I don't know what this hypervigilance is all about, nor do I understand why parents have to live through their children to the extent they do these days, but I am seeing too many kids - the college-age variety - who just have no idea who they are because they are still extensions of their parents and have never been allowed to separate and become their own persons.

Mrs. Tannenbaum probably isn't stupid - she's just over-invested in her kid, to the point where she cannot bear the idea that her child might have a tough time with a friend, feel a negative emotion or two, get her feelings hurt; all she's really doing is stunting the child's emotional growth, making her incapable of handling anything negative.

I don't know who to feel sorrier for - the kid or her mother; one's clearly dysfunctional and the other is learning how to be that way.

"Helicopter parents," they're called (5.00 / 1) (#9)
by Cream City on Sat May 09, 2009 at 06:42:09 AM EST

by college advisors. Because they hover. . . .


Helicopter parents? (5.00 / 1) (#10)
by kmblue on Sat May 09, 2009 at 07:59:47 AM EST

Oh, that's good. ;)


I remember reading (5.00 / 1) (#15)
by jbindc on Sat May 09, 2009 at 09:00:01 AM EST

an article last year about how these "helicopter parents" are now doing things like:

- calling their kids' college professors to complain about grades;

- attending job fairs, talking to recruiters, handing out resumes, and setting up interviews for their precious

(and, my personal favorite)

- calling their kids' bosses or HR to discuss why junior didn't get a perfect performance evaluation and bigger raise. ("Junior always got ribbons in school - even for participation, why can't you give him a better evaluation for showing up 3 days out of 5?")

I can't imagine the look on my parents' faces if I ASKED them to do this stuff, let alone picture them doing this kind of stuff on their own.


: Yep, they are. (none / 0) (#27)
by Cream City on Sun May 10, 2009 at 10:41:10 AM EST

My personal favorite was from a colleague at another campus, not mine, which is a commuter campus of many older students so more immune from this. Colleague got one of those calls from a parent complaining about a grade on a paper. One of the causes for the complaint was that the parent had "helped" with it, and apparently much more than "help," as the parent even defended his -- not the student's -- word choices.
As a parent, I know it's a difficult line to walk. My kids resisted my help too much -- only help, like reminding them to review and focus on instructions for a paper, or showing interest to talk through direction they're taking on a paper, and perhaps some proofreading (but not actually changing wording, just catching errors -- and having the student look up what's wrong and how to fix them). That sort of help is good training for grad school seminars, where students are encouraged to do so for each other, as well as for brainstorming and being team players in workplaces. Training for collegiality is training for being a copter pilot, not just a passenger. :-)

in think, perhaps, (5.00 / 0) (#8)
by cpinva on Sat May 09, 2009 at 02:13:26 AM EST

mommy needs to get a life.

Ms. Tannenbaum, the elder, isn't (none / 0) (#1)
by oculus on Fri May 08, 2009 at 08:27:47 PM EST

keeping up with the news re Craigslist and/or MySpace mom.

no kidding. (none / 0) (#2)
by cpinva on Fri May 08, 2009 at 09:24:41 PM EST

she's fortunate her stupidity only seems to have resulted in annoyance, rather than something worse.

are my wife and i bad parents, because it just wouldn't ever occur to either of us to do something like this, as a way of "sticking up" for our children?

what's w4m21? (none / 0) (#3)
by Mitch Guthman on Fri May 08, 2009 at 10:10:42 PM EST

It's been a lot of years since I worked vice. What's w4m21?

w4m21 (none / 0) (#4)
by TomStewart on Fri May 08, 2009 at 10:15:46 PM EST

Woman for Male, age 21.


I think it means (none / 0) (#5)
by nycstray on Fri May 08, 2009 at 10:16:04 PM EST

woman for man over 21?


I'm pretty sure (none / 0) (#6)
by TChris on Fri May 08, 2009 at 10:28:03 PM EST

it means the woman is 21. She's looking for a man of unspecified age.


: Ah, thanks. (none / 0) (#20)
by nycstray on Sat May 09, 2009 at 12:02:34 PM EST

It's easy (none / 0) (#12)
by TeresaInSnow2 on Sat May 09, 2009 at 08:53:33 AM EST

Some grownups don't ever grow up. This is an example of one.

It's Hauppauge (pronounced 'hop hog'), (none / 0) (#13)
by snstara on Sat May 09, 2009 at 08:58:13 AM EST

not Haupage, and it's a middle class town on the North Shore of Suffolk County, Long Island.

I grew up in a town not far from Hauppauge. While helicopter parents are not unusual in Suffolk County, it was appalling to hear last night that this parent works as a psychotherapist and a social worker. At what point does a mother identify so strongly with her 9-year-old daughter (see Anne's point above) that she abandons her training, her ethics, and everything she must have learned to harm another child?

: Holy cow... (5.00 / 1) (#16)
by Anne on Sat May 09, 2009 at 09:19:26 AM EST

that is appalling; can't help thinking the publicity may have a negative effect on her ability to counsel others, and I can't say that I think that would be a bad thing.

: Wow. (5.00 / 1) (#18)
by easilydistracted on Sat May 09, 2009 at 11:44:59 AM EST

I hope she issues a disclaimer to her clients/patients to, "do as I say, not as I do."

: I missed that part of the story (5.00 / 1) (#19)
by nycstray on Sat May 09, 2009 at 12:01:37 PM EST

wow. I think my brain was prob still trying to process what the woman did.

I think the child should be put in foster care (none / 0) (#17)
by imhotep on Sat May 09, 2009 at 10:45:40 AM EST

until the parent satisfactorily completes one year of parenting classes.

Technically I think it is. (none / 0) (#21)
by MileHi Hawkeye on Sat May 09, 2009 at 01:12:19 PM EST

But, it does make me wonder if TL has a Facebook page? If not, why not?

Will you follow-up in July (none / 0) (#23)
by ding7777 on Sat May 09, 2009 at 03:06:37 PM EST

with the "other side of the story"?

Tannenbaum was released on $500 bail and is scheduled to be arraigned in July. Her attorney, Tad M. Scharfenberg of Bohemia, said the incident has been blown out of proportion

"blown out of proportion"? (none / 0) (#24)
by nycstray on Sat May 09, 2009 at 03:27:09 PM EST

Hmmm, methinks they showed the ad on the TeeVee, can't imagine what she has to say that would make her "side of the story" much better :)


Yes, I'm sure there's an eminently (none / 0) (#25)
by Anne on Sat May 09, 2009 at 03:46:23 PM EST

logical explanation for why Tannenbaum put her neighbor's telephone number in a Craigslist ad for sex. Because, of course, that's always how neighbors settle disputes between their 9-yr old children - with Craigslist ads for sex.

I keep getting this image of a 9 year old whose parents have so sheltered her from life's little problems, that when there was this "dispute," she crossed her arms, stomped her foot and whined, "Mommy, DO something!" And Mommy did.

Because, of course, parents like this always do what their children tell them to do, lest the child be mad at them...we just can't have that.

How did we end up with parents like this? Is it the pressure to be perfect? Is it fear of not being loved?

I really just don't get it, but that's nothing new, lol.


: lawyers get the big bucks to (none / 0) (#26)
by ding7777 on Sat May 09, 2009 at 04:12:17 PM EST

uncover the eminently logical explanations, no?