Look up helicopter parenting. It sounds like it fits.

I have seen it referenced a few times in different places.

Nasty does this with SS9 & SD8 when she can be bothered with them.

I would say that they don't want their babies to grow up, but quite frankly, Nasty doesn't do enough with them to care one way or the other.

Some BM's seem to be too lazy to teach their children but that's counterproductive for the "lazy" aspect.

Other BM's like to feel "needed" (my SIL babies my 6yo niece for this reason)

My only conclusion for the BM in my situation, Nasty does it because she's a dumb a$$.

It makes the mother feel needed...

There are plenty of times that the parent
does not even realize that they are doing it..

I am reading the book "how much is enough"

When a parent does for a child what a child
can do for themselves...the parent is being
over indulgent...

I've seen people do it who had really messed up childhoods themselves...abuse, neglect, etc. they vow to be much better parents to their kids, but they have no idea how because they had no role models. So they get wacky and overprotective, thinking they are doing what is best.

i don't have the answer, but i have a friend who drives me crazy with it, and her daughter is 10. when bs was barely 2, i called him my baby. this friend, B, jumped me up one side and down the other about how he was NOT a baby, he is a TODDLER. within the same hour, her dh left to get their daughter from church, and B said "are you going to get the baby?" she was 8 at the time. i couldn't hold it in. i told her i could not believe she just gave me crap about calling a 2 year old a baby, but it's ok for her to call an 8 year old a baby. she said "but she is my baby!" i said "and bs is MY baby!" that's just how she is. the rules never apply to her, not even her own. she still treats her kid like a baby. she's 10 and acts 5. she always gives in because "she's so cute". well, bs is the cutest kid i've ever seen, but i'm not going to let him do whatever he wants to because of it. isn't that where entitled kids come from?

I have thought about this a lot too. I found it incredibly frustrating that BM infantilized her youngest because it was totally inappropriate and actually held him back quite a bit (incidentally, he was literally held back in school for two different years and is now two years older than all his classmates...go figure). It drove me nuts because my younger skid was extremely manipulative and played up his embarrassing baby act. He refused to speak correctly, acted completely helpless (even with things like putting on his own coat) and only learned to tie his shoes when the school called my exH and said that all the other kids had learned to and that the teachers had a policy that they didn't tie shoes for the kids after a certain point. BM absolutely encouraged his baby behavior and treated him like a toddler when he was 5! My own pet theory was that she did this because she had absolutely no self-esteem from any other area of her life and her only validation (as sad as it is) was that she managed to get pregnant and push out two kids. I think moms should absolutely take pride in being moms, don't get me wrong, but I think the pride should come from taking excellent care of your kids and raising kind, polite, thoughtful children, not just the fact that you had sex and got pregnant. Her whole goal in having kids was to trap my exH into marrying her, which didn't work, but she clung to her "family" idea and I think that she wasn't able to let go of the dreams she had when her kids were babies. She absolutely COULD NOT separate them out from her and she spent years telling the skids that exH had "abandoned" both her and the skids, while we had to repeatedly correct that lie to the skids by honestly telling them that, yes, exH HAD "abandoned" BM (and we explained break ups as well as we could and put it tactfully) but that exH would NEVER abandon his kids. While BM was telling them this lie, we were shocked by how she could not separate herself from the skids psychologically and seemed to view them all as one person (the only trinity I am comfortable with is The Father, The Son and The Holy Ghost!). The skids got over it and exH worked so hard to have equal custody that they realized that they weren't being abandoned, but BM never got over that idea and continued to tell them that they had been abandoned (even when they spent exactly half the time with us, including nights!).

Any sign of independence from her or individual identity got completely squashed by BM and she didn't handle it at all well when even clingy and manipulative younger SS broke away and wanted to do his own thing more...So, I think it's inappropriate attachment, having the BMs self-esteem and identity way too tied up in the skids and no sense of self-worth from healthy sources that causes a lot of BMs to do this. I'm sure there are other reasons in other situations, but I think that was what was going on with my BM.

I completely agree with the "not wanting child(ren) to grow up" which I despise! This does not do the kids ANY favors. All it does is make them mentally and physically lazy which sets a dangerous pattern for their lives going forward. I have a SD9.5 and SS5 and it annoys me to no end how helpless they can be since BM does everything for them. To a lesser extent, my DH is guilty of babying behavior. He STILL brushes his daughter's hair and she's NINE AND A HALF! I've told him as nicely as I can that if he doesn't start making her do it for herself as she should, he'll still be brushing her hair when she's sixteen. A lot of the problem is these kids are so oblivious because they're allowed to be....their eyes are always fixated on the TV and they seem unable to do anything for themselves. I do understand the impatience factor though – doing things for them because it takes too long for them to accomplish a task. This is why I find myself upstairs in our bedroom when the kids are there because I just don't enjoy being around them.

Their BM is over-indulgent; she, and all of her family, cater to these kids and I find it nauseating. I have always enjoyed learning to do things on my own. The kids are missing out on learning to complete tasks and feeling the accomplishment that goes with it. They are annoyingly dependent.

I agree with FreeNHappy about BM being completely tied up with the kids. In my situation, I think being a Mommy is the absolute ONLY identity the woman has and the only way that she feels empowered or validated.