A smart and well reported piece on so-called helicopter parents in Time Magazine at first produced in EarlyStories the kind of reaction such pieces intend to produce -- a sigh and a shrug, directed, as it should be, at parents who have once again gone too far.

But a second read produced a different reaction. At a time of high unemployment, and with so many families struggling financially, the timing seemed a bit off. Do parents worrying about foreclosures, credit card debt and job loss really have the time and inclination to over manage their kids lives in the way the Time piece described?

The answer is that that most don't, although the more upscale parents Time spoke with seem to have more than enough, according to the extreme examples from Nancy Gibb's cover article. Parental transgressions ranged from buying macrobiotic cupcakes and hypoallergenic socks to hiring tutors to correct a 5-year-old's "pencil-holding deficiency,'' and showing up at school unannounced to bring matching accessories. Let's not forget hooking up broadband connections in a treehouse or buying leashes for children and knee pads for toddlers.

"We were so obsessed with our kids' success that parenting turned into a form of product development,'' Gibbs wrote. "Parents demanded that nursery schools offer Mandarin, since it's never too soon to prepare for the competition of a global economy.''

All of this may be true. But so is this: More than 75 percent of the nation’s four-year-olds and an even larger percentage of 3-year-olds still have no access to state-funded pre-k programs, much less mandarin programs. Despite worries about the overscheduled child, some 18 million children need, but don't have, after school programs. Some 28 million parents work outside the home and as many as 15 million "latchkey,'' kids go home to an empty house.

So EarlyStories has concluded the following. The helicopter parent may not be hovering in many U.S. households at the moment. But reading the story was a nice substitute for buying Entertainment Weekly.