I think it’s only common courtesy for kids to respond in some way to their parents’ communication. I may be in the minority, but I don’t think it’s too much to ask for a student to send a quick text in response to a parental one every other day or so. That’s how my freshman D seems to communicate best. Early in the semester I tried an occasional phone call, but she generally only had one-word answers or was with friends. But she seems fine with a few texts a week.
Back in the early '80s when I was in college, I remember my mom was astounded to see that each dorm room had its own phone (possibly rotary; I can’t remember). Still, phone calls were expensive, so we did the Sunday night call. And we also wrote letters about once a week. After my mom died and I was cleaning out the house, I was so touched to find she had kept every single letter I sent.
As long as you don’t make them feel guilty for not calling! My mom would do that to me. I finally told her that if she wants to talk to me, she doesn’t have to wait for me to call. This was later in life, though. In college, I remember we had a phone in our room, but I honestly can’t remember how often (or not) I talked to my parents.
"Incidentally, while my friends and I did it for the free food/drink opportunities, I knew of many other students on that and other campuses who did it as a protest against the heavily social dominance and exclusionary attitudes "
You can dress it up all you want and make these lame excuses that it was some form of “protest.” But we can all see right through it. You did so because either a) no one ever taught you right from wrong, or b) you knew right from wrong and you just didn’t care. Normal, decent people don’t “crash weddings or parties,” and they don’t think stealing other people’s things is funny. And walking into a party where you weren’t invited and stealing other people’s food / drink is really no different from walking into a party and stealing other people’s jackets.
And could you please stop being so weird on the “Greek=conservative” thing? PLENTY of liberal, progressive students in Greek organizations. Stop stereotyping. You don’t like stereotyping when it’s applied to you, but you somehow paint anyone who is upper middle class as “uppity” and anyone who is Greek as “snotty and conservative.”
I have two sophomores. I rarely call them but they call me sever time a week. In fact, if im not available they call and call, and then ask why i didnt answer. They dont get it that I’m not glued to my phone like they are. If I need something, usually a form or receipt having to do with something they want or need for school or insurance, I text and then they text back or call.
However, if I wanted them to call me several times a week or even a day, I’d make that a condition of paying tuition, for the phone, etc. I dont think that’s the way to independence, but if it’s what I wanted I’d make it a clear before the child went to Harvard.
DH called his parents once a week on Sundays. My parents were in Africa my freshman year, so I just wrote letters. I think I wrote most weeks. We never did get in the habit of calling regularly.
Considering your past posts and viewpoints, my impression is your definition of liberal and progressive is much further to the right* than the working definition most political scientists and historians would use…especially in most industrialized democracies outside the US.
What's considered "liberal" like the NYT or many political points of the US democratic party would be considered center-leaning right or even conservative by the standards of mainstream politics of those democracies and political scientists/historians. It was funny to hear several Western European and some Asian international students regard the NYT as "conservative" in its orientation...even among editorialists considered "liberal" by mainstream American standards.
I think the person in the story should talk to her daughter about it, and establish some sort of thing with communicating. Without knowing more, I don’t know if the kid is snotty (implied by the mom saying her daughter yelled at her for disturbing her in class…which if true, is pretty crappy, there is a thing known as mute on the phone, so it won’t interrupt you). On the other hand, the mom in the story could also be saying one thing and doing another, ie claiming she only contacts her once in a while, while in fact she is constantly doing it. The fact that she is going overboard, with threats about witholding Christmas gifts or ‘freezing the daughter’ out tells me it is a lot more than this, when someone reacts overboard like that over something that seems pretty trivial, mom also might have issues, like feeling overlooked, etc.
With my son, we text, but mostly it is about sports stuff (given he is at a music school, not a lot of the kids are into sports, I keep telling him he should walk down to a sports bar in South Boston, likely will find a lot of people he can talk sports to:). At times I got a little irked at him for not responding to a text, but I told him I was irked, usually by sending something funny and sarcastic, and he gets the drift. But I also know he is busy, and I also remember how it was at that age, the things I was doing, so I don’t take it personally.
When I didn’t hear from them, I did check FB and could tell they were alive. But before they left for college, we had said we wanted at least a weekly check in.
But there was the time D2 disappeared from campus one Friday. I realized when the cell co texted me that night about adding on a Canadian call plan to keep call costs low. Long story, but we found her pretty fast and the incident was dumb and dumber. (She had turned off roaming when she got there, so no phone contact. D1 did find her by FB’ing a Canadian friend.) I don’t expect them to stay in daily contact. But nor did I trust that no news is good news. This stupidity, btw has ever been repeated.
ps. I don’t see how one poster’s repeated opinion of frats and how he chose to deal with them has any relevance here.
I do think expecting a response from a text in a couple hour window is ok. Even if the kid is in class they have a 10 minute break in between classes ( just for the record I text my kids about once or twice a week). Kids these days definitely check their phones in between classes. My kids are very polite about responding I think mostly because I am not over the top. Most of the texting is fact based (what time will you be coming home over the holidays? Type of things or just friendly “adult” update about family or friends)
Even though this is a common stereotype of millennials, this isn’t necessarily the case with all of them.
There are still some who never bother to check their cells during the middle of the day due to being busy and/or disliking the idea of being connected practically 24/7 with people expecting relatively instantaneous responses(2 hour window would quality IMO).
On the flipside, I’ve seen plenty of middle aged and seniors who can’t get off the cellphone even in a darkened theater, family dinner/date, to the point of walking themselves into a stationary object, etc.
It’s also not conducive to some types of work environments they may end up working in. For instance, several offices/worksites I’ve worked in have information security policies so strict they mandate everyone going onsite to check in their cell phones and other personal electronics before going on-site which means we’d be out of contact with family/friends/social acquaintances for several hours at a stretch.
One ex’s office was so far underground that the only time she could check texts/return calls was on her short lunchbreaks because cell reception didn’t reach that far down and the staff are expressly prohibited from using office phones/computers for any personal communications.
And the spouses/family/friends/acquaintances still sometimes get inexplicably upset over the lack of an instantaneous response to a text/call despite having been notified ahead of time and being reminded countless times by said colleagues that the nature of their work/work environment prevents them from being able to instantly respond to such texts/calls. Mindboggling…
And some people swear there are UFOs. We weren’t talking exceptions. Or workplace security. Or places without signals.
The point is that communications is usually, by definition, two-way. Kids can check in periodically and are generally able to. This is regardless of whether or not the college years are seen by some as a period of detaching and even rebelling. Contact can be simple. Both sides can agree to some framework. Both can be reasonable. And that, after all, is a decent goal.
There will always be exceptions. But we’re talking about the ordinary and mutual respect.
I went to school in London for a year. Was really broke most of the time. Scrounged for phone cards - what is that hahaha - on the holidays and called my family and my best friend and talked until it cut us off. Other than that it was letters!
However, I do feel this should be dictated more by the student concerned with some negotiation from the concerned parents…not rigidly settled by parental diktat.
That is…unless the parent(s) concerned aren’t concerned this is likely to encourage the young adult to distance him/herself further from the parents later on to get away from their perceived “excessive clinginess”.
And I’m not saying there should be no contact for the entire semester either…just a mutually agreeable compromise both the student and parents could live with.
Mostly, we give S cash as my attempts to buy him gifts end with me having to return them as his size is difficult to find or even guess appropriately. He has the “stuff” he wants. For D, she still lives gifts, but is sometimes not so easy tonshop for either. They are 28 and 26 respectively. S has more thank enough $$ to buy what he wants or needs. They have a tough time buying things for us too.
My parents began to dispense of it when I hit about 45.
I began to dispense with the tradition when my daughter hit 17 or so and made it very clear that she prefered one single big ticket item of her own choosing – a plane ticket, for example, or an iPad – to piles of presents to open under the tree.
We do stockings. As many little things as possible. Hard candy in the toe. Small gadgets. What young adult does not need a small adjustable wrench or vise grip? Maybe my D is weird, but those went over big last year.
In my extended family, it was either when one is considered to have reached a milestone of being considered an adult…graduating HS or turning 18. Whichever came first.
In my case that meant Christmas gifts stopped at 17.
BTW: @GMTplus7 how were the green eggs and ham which gave your avatar such nice Christmas colors?
