“Lately, I’ve started to feel like a schoolteacher,” a company president remarked with a sigh. He explained that he is increasingly finding himself caught up in the kind of unreasonable, high-pressure exchanges that would have been unthinkable in the past—such as receiving a sudden call from the mother of a new, young employee, demanding, “My son has trouble waking up in the morning, so I need you to come and pick him up. If that’s not possible, he’s quitting.” The term “monster parents” is used to describe parents who make selfish and irrational demands of schools; it seems that, in recent years, a similar breed of parent has emerged—one that directs these same kinds of unreasonable, self-serving demands toward workplaces as well. (Kei)

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