I'm goin' to Noo Yawk, Papa...You aint goin' to that no good town!

Do people really say this sort of the thing in real life, or is it just in the movies? Did your Mama & Papa ever say anything like that to you when you decided to move to the big city?

• Yes, parents DO sometimes try to do this. Maybe I should say interfere or hover, which is what happened in my case. One parent tried very hard to prevent me from re-locating to a major city with a large Gay population. I was going to be with my then BF.I was Gay, we didn't discuss it at home, I was stuck in a small town in NE. Nearly every trick in the book was tried. It was sick. I now realize that this parent was hovering, a helicopter parent but in a BAD way, because this person didn't want to be alone. Sick, it didn't destroy my life, but my life is certainly far different than it would be had I simply been allowed to leave home when it was time.Kids have to fly the nest at some point. It is a story that gets ugly. I will stop now. So, yes, it happens.

• only in a comic strip

• R1, Same. Except it HAS ruined my life. I just now realized this was the case. Meanwhile, this parent has spent many thousands of dollars to keep me living nearby. They don't have anything to leave me once they're gone. All my attention has been on this parent, so I don't have any friends. I'm not even finished with undergrad college. I'm screwed. But it really makes me happy to hear that someone with a similar situation was able to defy it.

• Since both my father and I were born in NYC, this obviously would not have been possible. But I do have to say that my parents suddenly backed off on telling me what to do the minute I went to college, so although of course my mother worried about me being alone in the city (I'm female, and this was before the Giuliani/ Bloomberg era), they didn't actually say anything.

• When a friend died of AIDS, his mother said she warned him about moving to New York and it wouldn't have happened if he stayed in Nebraska.

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• Our next nominee for most boring thread of the year... the "I'm going to Noo Yawk, Papa" thread.

• My mom actually said, "Fine- go look for the bright lights".