Parents & Family

Familial routine not so familiar for college kid

[This article was written by Sam Cook a columnist for the Duluth News Triube, and published on Monday, May 17th, 2004.]

A couple of weeks ago in this space, I wrote about the adjustments required when our College Girl returns home for the summer. Andrew Minck of Duluth, who just finished his freshman year at St. John's University in Collegeville, Minn., read that column and thought the college student's perspective was missing. I said, OK, College Boy, have at it.

Here's Minck's take:

Yes, we have returned. The CGs (College Girls) and CBs (College Boys) have come back to once again be part of the household.

We have had our nine months of independence, and now it's over. There are rules, regulations and order to keep. There are chores to be done and projects that need our assistance around the house.

In August, one thing almost every student starting or returning to college looks forward to is the freedom and independence from the parental figures. In May, we look forward to having some time off from grueling college classes, but the trade-off of giving up independence is not a trade-up.

After the first couple of days, it's back to the routine that we haven't been used to since last summer. The routine includes daily notes on the table listing chores that must be accomplished, and they had better be done by the time the parents come home!

We, the college students, have to adapt to the ways of the household we've almost forgotten. First, some of us have to relocate to different places in our house because our former bedrooms have been repainted and redone for a guest/sibling room. Next, we have to become accustomed to the quirks that the parents have picked up since we left, which includes the father falling asleep while reading mail on the kitchen table bench.

Schedules are different at home. The parents want us to be very quiet when we come in at night, when they have already been asleep for half the night. Yet we have to listen to them start their day at 6:45 in the morning.

The other most prevalent issue is the always inquisitive nature of the parents. The who, what and where questions that every parent should ask teenagers gets old once we're in college. Why do the parents have to know what we are doing in the summer when they don't know what we do for the other three-fourths of the year? Yeah, yeah. We know. It's parental instinct.

Of course, we appreciate the way the parents also love us and embrace us when we come home. This includes the $144 grocery shopping trip with the maternal parent to get food edible to a college student. Also the friend's parent taking three of us returning college students out to lunch. It's nice to consume actual home-cooked food that's prepared for me and not by me and wasn't mass-produced.

As much as we have our differences, we still like to come home to the familiar faces and somewhat familiar house. We love our families and hope we can make it through another summer without too many squabbles.

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Andrew Minck can be reached late into the night at minck07@yahoo.com.