Three more weeks until classes begin at the University of Washington. I walked across campus a couple of days ago, a beautiful late summer day, and noticed the various orientation activities for new students already in progress.
Last year at this time, I mentioned my bemusement at parents' increased involvement in the launching of their kids' college careers. I wasn't certain -- I'm still not, completely -- as to whether this is a good or bad thing, all things considered.
When I left my small home town in Washington for school in California, parental involvement was simple. My dad took a couple of hours off work to drive me and my three suitcases to the train station. My mom, who also worked, had already said her goodbyes earlier that morning. We shook hands, he told me to study hard, I boarded the train, waved, and that was it until Christmas. Just like the Norman Rockwell painting!
This year, there has been a flurry of news stories describing the difficulties parents are having in "letting go." My parents' farewells would seem incomprehensible at best, criminal at worst, to many parents today. My folks were very concerned with my education and my happiness. I would never have described them, however, as "helicopter" parents, hovering overhead.
Grinnell College in Iowa has taken the desperate step of conducting a formal "Parting Ceremony." Welcoming speeches are given to both kids and parents. Then the freshmen march through the college gates, which swing shut after them, leaving the parents outside. The separation is symbolic, but effective. Other schools, such as Colgate and Princeton, state bluntly in their program materials that orientation events are intended for students only.
Obviously, a problem exists that has colleges concerned.
College administrators tell anecdotes of parents who attend classes with their offspring for the first week or so, and take them to the registrar to help them change schedules where needed. Parents will ignore barricades and signs designed to ensure that only students handle class registration and attend orientation events. Less egregiously, but still bemusing, today's parents and kids expect to be in daily contact -- often multiple times per day -- by phone and text message.
What's a parent to do? Especially after reading The Happiest Kid on Campus: A Parent's Guide to the Very Best College Experience (for You and Your Child). You're supposed to let him or her attempt to have the "very best" experience all by him or herself? I don't think so!
Not being a parent myself, it's easy for me to laugh and pontificate. But I can empathize with today's parents, parents who have been far more involved in every aspect of their children's lives all along than parents dreamed of being even twenty years ago. It makes it hard now to cut -- or even significantly loosen -- the cord. But if the cord isn't going to be cut when the young people (not really "kids," any longer) are 18, we shouldn't complain a decade from now when we find ourselves increasingly alarmed by a "Seinfeld generation" of young adults who still can't make decisions or enter into commitments with any degree of self-confidence.
"I'm supposed to shed a few tears and then send her to the world, right?" asked one incredulous mother. Yup, I'm afraid that's the way it's always worked.
--------------------Factual information and parental anecdotes from New York Times (8-22-10) and Seattle Times (9-4-10)
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