The Parental Units Come to Campus
Recently came back from that rite-of-passage known as Funding Sources Weekend (sorry, that would be Parents Visiting Weekend in higher ed-speak) for our college Freshperson.
We did all the usual things – fed my son and his roommate a meal whose components were actually recognizable (i.e. not from the college cafeteria), schlepped stuff he needed from home to his dorm room, schlepped other stuff he didn’t need back home, slipped him some cash, and even rooted for his school at a football game that was coincidentally played against my own alma mater (hey, his team won, too).
The only thing I didn’t get to do? What my friend Elise did for her son (when she told me about this, I admit experiencing a pang of jealousy): spend four hours cleaning up his room. My offspring pretty much barred me from spending any quality time in his closet-sized pied-a-terre, but my quick glimpse from the hallway did reveal that his roommate’s bed was made and you-know-who’s was not.
Come to think of it, maybe his preventing me from doing the maternal cleaning thing was a smooth move. Guess he's learning lots at college after all.
Comments
After the experience of moving him in, is it any wonder that we will be permanently barred from his room...apartment...house...?
Just another step in our children trying to become independent.
treating the college kid and her roomie to dinner once a while (on that "special" weekend) sure beats the customary weekend trip to the mall, each and every weekend... and I even miss her (at least every so often!).
We also just returned from visiting our son at his college's FAMILY Weekend.
Two things that I noticed:
1. The traditional "Parent Weekend" has now been renamed "Family Weekend" at this institution. I believe this was done deliberately to capture another group of potential donors, i.e. the grandparents.
2. And why is it that this weekend kept reminding me of our not-so-long ago visits to our son's summer sleepaway camp?
Could it be the lugging of groceries (aka junk food)into his dorm room or is it from climbing all those hills to try to find his dorm?
I happen to think that it has something to do with the words "CAMPUS" and "CAMP". Think sporting events occurring simultaneously throughout the weekend and the uniformed athletic types running up and down that hilly campus. Also remember visiting those messy bunks, bringing junk food into the bunk, and then climbing up and down that hilly terrain again just to get that hug and kiss from our son.
Well, it worked again.
When's Thanksgiving?
Ah, parents weekend...one year at my alma matter it coincided with Homecoming AND the Great Midwest Marijuana Festival ... the lovely city of Madison WI was coated in a cloud of pot haze. I never was a toker, but according to my 'rents? Best. Weekend. Ever.
Since my son wouldn't "allow" us to come up for visiting weekend, I'm glad I was able to experience it vicariously thru your column.
