My D goes to college 600 miles away. It never crossed my mind to go there and help her pack up. Now she says that “everyone”—even the students who live a plane-ride away—has a parent coming to help them pack up for the summer. I told her last week that I thought it was not necessary, that she can do it on her own.
Seems easy because everything goes—she has to empty the room. The only decisions to make are which things to store there over the summer (there’s a service), which things to ship home (same service takes care of that), and which things to pack in her suitcase to take on the plane. The packing/shipping service provides all the boxes and supplies.
I already told her that storage should include: All the items we picked up at Bed, Bath, and Beyond at drop-off time in the fall and all her winter clothes, boots, and outerwear. Bring on the plane: Items she will want/need for the first week home. Items to ship: Everything else. Seems simple to me.
Am I missing something? It seems excessive (and expensive) for parents to fly out there and stay in a hotel to help kids pack their stuff. I hate to sound like an old fogey, but when I was in college I packed up my stuff and had it ready when my parents arrived with the car (a couple of hours from home). Or am I being unreasonable?
You are not being unreasonable and it is a good experience for your D to have to plan and execute this on her own. My D has had to do this at the end of freshman and sophomore year and this year will be handling her own move from her sorority house to the off campus house she will be leasing for her senior year. We live on the west coast and she goes to school on the east coast - no way was I making the trip out there every year just to help pack up. IMHO, this is one of those tasks they need to handle that helps the transition to adult.
And I had the same experience with my parents when I went to Syracuse - my Dad let me know that everything was to be boxed up and ready to go when he arrived to take me home. I knew he meant it. It would have been a very uncomfortable 5 hour ride home if I hadn’t been ready when he got there.
ETA: We also used a similar service. Dorm Room Movers, I think. They really do make it easy. It’s all about organization. Just remind her bedding and linens need to be put away clean…my D made that mistake freshman year…
I don’t think you are being unreasonable. That being said we personally do go and help our kids pack up. For me this is actually fun. We treat it like a vacation, getting to go to their favorite haunts and see the campus/town at a time when they aren’t stressing about school. But given that there is a service so that she doesn’t have to worry about how to get to someplace to ship boxes or worry about getting boxes, it shouldn’t be a big deal for her to pack herself.
Your daughter has too much stuff if she has a SERVICE! and still needs more help. Time to purge.
I went to pick up my daughter after freshman year and she was ‘less than packed.’ I was NOT all that happy. She had too much stuff. At the last minute I borrowed an SUV and was glad I did because it would never have fit in the Honda trunk and back seat. We threw it into trash bags and crammed it all in the car, not an inch to spare, with her boyfriend helping. She then had to vacuum and clean the room (roommate had already left). Boyfriend took the mini fridge. Dorm life was over.
The next year we did move in with the Honda and move home with it. When I arrived to take her home, everything was packed and ready to just put in the car (did have to haul it down from the 3rd floor).
My other daughter is a minimalist. She went to Target and the big question was whether to buy 3 plastic storage bins or 4. The correct number was 3, she stored almost everything in those and stored them for the summer at a friend’s house. She brought home a duffel of summer clothes and a backpack with her computer in it. Done.
No they don’t really need help packing up. And if they do, it’s time they learn a little self-reliance. That’s one of the reasons we send them to school, as opposed to having them live at home.
I will pick my D up but expect that she will be fully packed and already have attended to putting things in storage that she will not need for the summer months. This sort of thing is part and parcel of learning to be independent and taking care of those unpleasant chores that we all would rather avoid.
I also expected my D to make her down doctor’s appointments her freshman year, which meant researching doctors and locating ones within a reasonable distance to her campus - she didn’t like the “wait time” for getting appointments at her campus health center. She did call and ask me to do this for her and after thinking about it, I gently declined. She now has doctors that she is comfortable with and she knows the process of how their offices work - if I had done it for her she would still be calling me every time she needed an appointment.
It’s hard for some of us but we have to enable growth not dependency.
I fully expected that my son, going to college on the other coast, would have to pack himself up and deal with the storage. I would not have made a special trip to help him, but then I found out that I have to travel to that area myself at the end of his school year. I rationalized that as long as I would be in the environs anyway I would help pack him up and show him what needs to be done THIS ONE TIME, and thereafter he would be on his own to do it. If I weren’t going to be there anyway, I would not have flown out to help him, but it seemed silly not to help under these circumstances.
I don’t think you are being unreasonable considering your distance and costs. I live close enough, that I just go with our van and we load up everything (and if they are not fully packed, we throw stuff in boxes). I don’t know if I’d go if I lived across the country.
Thank you, everyone. I knew the answer, but just wanted support
I have been consistently shocked at the things that parents are taking care of for their college students. I am on a facebook page for parents of students in D’s school. Some of the questions that parents post really give me pause.
My DD is 2300 miles away and I am NOT going to help her pack up. I have a lot of anxiety about it really, but that’s my issue. I know she’ll be fine. She’ll have about 24 hours after her last final until she needs to be out of the dorm. She’s not using a service as we have friends nearby who will store her summer stuff. But, I do worry about packing damp sheets and wrapping the Keurig, etc. so it doesn’t get damaged. She’s smart, but not (if you know what I mean).
Driving out to “help” pack means I get to spend quality time alone with my student as a year of “stuff” and memories gets reviewed and either discarded or saved. If I’m lucky, much of that thought process will be out loud, and I will hear stories I would otherwise miss. I also get the ride home - two days alone together to get to know the (hopefully) more mature young adult that is returning home after freshman year. This is a gift for me. It has nothing to do with helping/enabling! I recognize it and I consider myself fortunate that my offer to help wasn’t rejected.
Well, I am coming late to this discussion, but I would like to add “it depends.”
How close is the last available time in the residence hall to the time of the last exam your daughter has? At my university, there is a grace period to vacate the room after the last final. At QMP’s university, one year the rooms had to be vacated several days before the final paper was due in one of the courses! The last scheduled exam always ended very close to the time that the rooms closed out. I can understand it if a student wants to spend time studying prior to the last exams, rather than packing.
Is room access by key card or by key? If room entrance is controlled by a key card rather than a key, it is possible to close off access remotely, creating an absolute deadline to vacate the room.
How much weight can your daughter lift? Does she have friends who can and will help her with heavy boxes?
If the packing/shipping service actually brings the boxes and supplies to the dorm, and picks them up from there, that is a great advantage. QMP’s university did not offer that. Boxes had to be taken 4 or 5 blocks to UPS to be shipped–it would have been kind of a long walk with a single heavy box, and impossible with multiple boxes. On site storage was very limited as to size and number of boxes (3).
Minimalism is great for minimalists. I admire that; but we have a lot of “stuff” and QMP does also. We drove out each year (day and a half trip) to pick up QMP and “stuff.”
I don’t mind that. We also help elderly family members who need assistance with moving things.
She knows she better be packed - we have 4 years of history with boarding school. She’ll get help bringing boxes or suitcases to the car but nothing else.
We never helped our daughters pack up at the end of the year except at the end of the senior year… For that we were there anyway for commencement, and there was also going to be no summer storage any more. Everything had to either come home or get tossed. So we helped with that senior year packing.
If the kid has to study, surely there’s s lot of stuff that can be packed up well in advance. Having the kid study while someone else packs up for her just sounds like a recipe for confusion when it’s time to unpack.
If parents want to go, that’s all well and good I guess but a young adult should not need their parents’ assistance.
