【外刊英语精读】大学生家长群 | WeChat groups for college students

College  students bristle at overbearing parents' WeChat groups

家长微信群太过“窒息”惹恼大学生

Nineteen -year-old Yang Yucheng thought she had escaped the days when she would have to bring home her test papers for her parents to sign, after heading off to college. But when her parents revealed to her that they had already seen her results, when she returned home for a visit, she was shocked.

19岁的杨雨程（音译）以为上大学以后就摆脱了带试卷回家让父母签字的日子。但当她回家时，父母告诉她已经得知了她的成绩，她大吃一惊。

Organized  by a student counselor, a WeChat group was set up for teachers and parents of students studying at the university, so that the parents could keep track of how their children were getting on. However, this practice has divided opinion and raised concerns about the data privacy of adult-age students.

在辅导员组织下，在校学生的老师和家长建立了微信群，以便家长了解孩子的情况。然而这种做法引起了意见分歧，并引发了人们对成年学生数据隐私的担忧。

With  the COVID-19 pandemic making online teaching more ubiquitous among universities, teacher-parent chat groups, which are much more common among primary and secondary schools, have made their way to higher education institutions.

新冠疫情导致线上教学在大学中变得更加普遍，中小学更为常见的教师家长群也进入大学。

Many  parents believe these chat groups offer them a good channel to learn about their children who are often far away from their homes, and teachers find them convenient to send notices, while students complain they are a source of anxiety and possibly a violation of their privacy. 

许多家长认为这些聊天群为他们提供渠道来了解离家读书的孩子，老师们觉得发送通知很方便，而学生则抱怨聊天群让他们感到焦虑，甚至可能侵犯了他们的隐私。

Apart  from caring about their children's daily lives at school, such as finding the nearest supermarket and where to buy clothes, parents also discuss their academic performances, employment and finding suitable relationships, stretching into the realms of helicopter parenting.

除了关心孩子在学校的日常生活，比如找附近超市、去哪里买衣服，家长们还会讨论孩子的学习成绩、就业，为孩子找合适的对象，这已经到了直升机式育儿的地步。

Yang  Jun, a senior undergraduate student at the National University of Defense Technology in Changsha, has a similar distaste for such chat groups, though acknowledges some upsides. "My parents have learned from others how to get good grades, and which competitions I should participate in to get extra points and eventually gain admission to postgraduate studies without taking the entrance exam, something only reserved for top-ranking students," he said.

长沙国防科技大学大四本科生杨军同样不喜欢这样的聊天群，但也承认聊天群有其好处。“我的父母从别人那里了解到如何考高分，以及我应该参加哪些比赛才能获得加分，这样就可以免试读研究生，只有排名前列的学生才能获得免试资格。

Many  of the parents claim their children are not able to fend for themselves when they go off to college, with the irony being that their overindulgent parenting may be the cause of a lack of resilience. Children nowadays are not mature because they have spent most of their lives at school, with their parents and grandparents catering to their every need, one mother said.

许多家长声称孩子上大学后无法独立生活。但讽刺的是，他们过度溺爱的养育方式可能就是导致孩子适应能力差的原因。一位母亲表示现在的孩子不够成熟，他们一生中大部分时间都在学校度过，父母和祖父母照顾他们的一切需要。

However,  a mother of a second-year college student doesn't like such chat groups, even though she's joined one. "I don't want to meddle in my daughter's life and she is capable of handling things by herself," she said. "If she wants my help or comes to me for advice or comfort, I'm always there for her. Otherwise, she needs to learn how to deal with things by herself."

然而，尽管也加入了聊天群，一位大二学生的母亲却并不喜欢这种形式。 “我不想干涉我女儿的生活，她有能力自己处理事情，”她表示，“如果她需要我的帮助，或者来找我寻求建议或安慰，我总会在她左右。但其他情况下，她需要学会如何自己处理事情。”