No, but
at some point one does enter the shadows there, where the shades of grey start on the continuum toward "damn-the-torpedos-full-on-wrong-CHEATING-with-a-capital-C-and-liar-liar-pants-on-fire-claims" variety "helping" of one's children.
A ten dollar (Pound/Euro) book isn't it, but then... is a year's worth of an hour daily? Two hours daily? A dedicated two-week "bootcamp" that costs several thousand and comes with a money-back-gaurantee of "improved" scores? Coaching using old exams themselves? Non-standard proctoring?
It
is a continuum.
I used to think that it was sufficient to say to myself that if a parent's CONSCIENCE were bothering him/her-- that is, if you found yourself asking the question of whether or not what you were doing was squicky-- then it was probably over the line. But I've since decided that
that was hopelessly naive of me. There seem to be a lot of parents who honestly are pretty SHAMELESS about this, seeing no problem at all with things that I think are
clearly unethical in the extreme. In fact, they rationalize that they "have no other choice" or that "everyone else does it" (they don't-- at least I don't think so)-- and that they are doing it for the child's own good (even when it certainly seems clear from an outside perspective that it is causing direct harm).
Are there really so many pathological people in the world? I have no idea, but I do know that a great many parents I know have
zero problem doing things like WRITING their kids' college and scholarship essays, etc.
I cannot even begin to imagine the mindset it takes to do that-- never mind THIS kind of chicanery.It's as though they are living in a reality where ALL of JonLaw's posts are made completely seriously, not even remotely tongue-in-cheek.
They truly seem to be playing some sort of Survivor game with their kids as pawns. If that doesn't make one's skin crawl, I don't know what might.
