Matthew Baumgartner has been working, “hustling,” as he puts it, since he was 7. Back then, he’d dig golf balls out of the woods near a course, clean them up and resell them in egg cartons.
Now owner of June Farms in upstate New York, the subject of an eponymous reality series on Amazon Prime Video, he has little patience for a modern summer-job trend: parents calling for their teenagers to ask if he’s hiring.
In a blunt Instagram video that quickly went viral, Baumgartner didn’t mince words. “You guys have got to stop doing that,” he said. “It’s embarrassing. I’m embarrassed for you. How dumb is your kid that they can’t apply for themselves? You are doing them such a disservice.”
That frustration reflects what he’s seeing more and more in recent years. “I wouldn’t even consider an applicant who had their mom reach out on their behalf,” Baumgartner tells TODAY.com. “My brain automatically goes to ‘lazy.’ This does not signal a motivated worker.”
Online, plenty of viewers agreed. “If they can’t reach out about the job, then they are not right for the position!” one commenter wrote, while another, a teacher, added that “enabling has become an epidemic.” Others shared similar experiences:
- “It’s now not uncommon for parents to go to job interviews with their college graduate. (HR person here. I wish I was making this up).”
- “I can understand for a teen. But recently a man posted on the town FB page for his college graduate son looking for a job/career for him. THAT is absurd.”
- “I can’t tell you how many parents insisted on sitting in on the summer camp counselor interviews I held. Then, they answered all the questions for them.”
- “Just had a mom do that today. I said, have your daughter reach out and we’ll talk.”
- “Yeah, as a recruiter, I don’t bother with those.”
Not everyone agreed with Baumgartner’s take. Some argued that parents have always helped open doors for their children, calling it networking rather than overstepping.
But Baumgartner says the trend has moved well beyond the occasional helping hand. His video, he says, wasn’t aimed at younger children but at older teenagers — and even adults. “You’d be surprised, sometimes they’re in their twenties,” he says.
For Baumgartner, the issue isn’t just who makes the call, it’s what the first interaction reveals. Applicants, he says, begin presenting themselves from the moment they reach out, whether through a thoughtful message or a hastily written note. When a parent intervenes, “it doesn’t give anything about the kid,” he says, and instead suggests a lack of initiative.
This story first appeared on TODAY.com. More from TODAY:
