<p>My daughter and her friends have been joking about the SNL " Back Home Baller" sketch and how it’s so much like their lives when they are home for break and then one girl said she was kind of sad because her life wasn’t like that. Her parents were " super strict" and she didn’t feel indulged at all by them when she was home. My daughter told me that she really appreciated that she did. I told her I got to be a BHB when I was growing up and I just hope she dies the same for her kid. So how about you all do you indulge your kids on break or ask them to pitch in fully around the house. </p>
<p>Indulge in home cooking but they have to pitch in on the housework.</p>
<p>My kids are so welcomed by us…but we are not their maids, and this is not a vacation just for them. During these holidays, all of us have time off from our regular activities…not just the college students.</p>
<p>So…we expect them to be helpful around the house, and not to be expected to be waited on hand and foot.</p>
<p>We do things like cook their favorite meals or take them to favorite restaurants. We might go shopping or out to do a special activity they don’t get to do while away at college. We let them use our cars, and open our home to their friends. </p>
<p>But I don’t think “indulge” is the right word…because we do exoect them to still do their own laundry, clean up their rooms, put their dishes in the dishwasher. It’s going to snow here, and we expect our kid to help us clear the driveway. </p>
<p>We are like thumper1. They get their favorite meals. I take them shopping and let them watch their favorite TV shows on my TV. But they pitch in with housework, need to check with us before they could have people over, need to tell us where they are going.</p>
<p>We admit we spoil them significantly, especially when they’re home–favorite foods, take them shopping, but they do help as needed and requested. The time flies and they’ll be back in their house/apartment 2500-5000 miles away.</p>
<p>Indulge the kids…yes. Become a doormat…no. Like many others when my D is home from college and even on a rare occasion when my grown son comes home for a weekend from his apartment in NYC, I’m thrilled to make their favorite meals, allow them to invite friends over for pizza and a movie in our house, watch whatever they want on TV with them, take them shopping, even throw in a load of wash for them once in a while. But I do expect that the rules of the house be followed, that if they are out later than they anticipated that they just text us (we do the same if they are home), that they keep their rooms decently, no drinking and driving etc. Indulging is fun, but decorum, responsibility, and courtesy are important as well. We have never had trouble striking a balance that works for all of us – maintaining both love and respect are key to this.</p>
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<p>I’d find the last to be quite restrictive considering I have not had a curfew since 6th grade, was independent from that age onwards, and certainly by 17 my parents and later, extended family felt I was mature and level-headed enough to not be minded as a little child to be worried over. </p>
<p>That’s not to say I never told my parents where I was going when I was home from college, but that doing so was discretionary…not a mandate. The same applied when I stayed with most older extended family. Mentality among them was if I was of age to go off to college, I’m old enough to be treated as an adult and mandating an adult to tell them where they are going would strike them as absurd. </p>
<p>Funny enough, this latitude actually facilitated more open communication by encouraging me to tell them where I was going…or to tell them what I did when I came back/next day. </p>
<p>Well, wait til you’re a parent, cobrat. Wait til you’ve held the responsibility for a family for 18+ years and created/kept together a “team.” That’s what this is about, the nature of give-and-take, from all sides. No one said curfew. Nor anarchy. I’m with the other parents here. I like to make them happy, learn who they are and are becoming, keep the bonds strong. But we’re not a B&B. It works. It’s a good thing. :)</p>
<p>We don’t require or ask for details, but common courtesy about when kids will be out and approximate return time so we aren’t waiting for them and know which meals they will be joining us for are key. It has never been a problem–especially with cell phones, you can easily text and get a response fairly quickly, even if neither party wants or needs a phone conversation. Doormats are not good for anyone involved–bad lessons for the kids AND parents.</p>
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<p>I never said students home from school should treat their parents’ home as a B&B. </p>
<p>Family time and helping out goes without saying. </p>
<p>However, parental expectations of must knowing where their children are going is something that among those I knew growing up, an expectation which went away once we went off to college at the absolute latest. </p>
<p>The only exceptions I know of are extremely strict parents such as one older classmate’s parents who insisted on maintaining a 10 pm curfew until she grew fed up enough to move out at 20 and to never return or maintain much contact with her parents beyond occasional phone calls since. </p>
<p>Most of us will tell you their responses are mixed. Sometimes specific and sometimes vague. What we want is a general idea. We’re not tracking them, nor timing them. It’s the courtesy of communications. Ime, this is the same as when we ask a spouse where they’re headed or more or less when they’ll be home. </p>
<p>You talk of college as some distinct marker of adulthood, cobrat. Only time tells when an individual is truly independent. It ebbs and flows, for some time. In my CC experience with the parents posting here, we each have respect and affection for our kids. None of us are as strict as your classmates’ or relatives’ parents may have been. Extreme examples don’t always work. We had another thread recently about this- and no one set some arbitrary 10pm curfew. None of us have driven our kids off the “team.” </p>
<p>When my husband leaves the house, he just doesn’t say “Bye”. He will tell me what he’s up to and maybe when to expect him home. And I usually do the same. </p>
<p>I believe it’s common courtesy and my D does the same. </p>
<p>We totally indulge them. Cook what they like, take them places, entertain their friends and go shopping with them. But we don’t wait on them hand and foot and clean up after them. In other words: treat them like any other family that is visiting.</p>
<p>As for rules: I fully expect that by the time my kids are adults, they will have learned common courtesy on their own. They tell me when they expect to be back, if they will be home for dinner and are quiet around the house during the night hours when the “adults” are asleep. But a curfew? I wouldn’t give my visiting siblings a curfew. Nor would they be required to tell me where they are going and with whom. If they wish to share that info, it’s appreciated, but not required. They are not young teens.</p>
<p>If you still need household rules by the time your children are adults, I think you’ve messed up somewhere. Just my humble opinion.</p>
<p>This is our first time experiencing this, since it is DS’s first time home since heading off to college in August. We’ve indulged him from the perspective of cooking favorite meals, being sure I had his favorite snacks around the house, etc… Still expect that he’ll take care of his dishes, laundry, etc. while he’s here. We haven’t imposed a curfew, per se, but with him home and us still having to get up to go to work/school, didn’t want him coming in at all hours of the AM (yes, cobrat, it is different at college, where the environment is more contained, and he’s not driving); he understood that and agreed to either be home by midnight or have made arrangements to stay where he was at midnight, and to send us a text so we know his plans. Yes, we expect to generally know where he is/who he’s with, etc., but that’s not about control, that is actually just good personal safety habits.</p>
<p>I was chopped liver when I came home for break. Same as if I had been living there. Didn’t bother me, I really liked college and could eat what I wanted there.</p>
<p>My mother Did my laundry until the day I left for college…and when i was home on breaks. A relative would constantly tell my mother I needed to learn to do laundry. How would I ever know how to do it. I guess because it’s laundry not rocket science I figured it out just fine. My mother STILL won’t let me do laundry in her home! ( I practically begged to do it the last tine we stayed with her…nope ) And yep I do my kids laundry when she’s home from college. Given the history I’m not worried. She’s already told me she plans on always doing HER kids when they are home from college (“unless I invent a robot who can do it”, says my engineering kid). </p>
<p>Cobrat…we ask to know where our kids are and they are 26 and 30. They don’t have ANY problem telling us where they will be and what time they will be returning. We don’t tell,them what time to come home, or prohibit them from going places…but as noted, it’s common courtesy to let folks know when you are coming and going if you are staying at their house. If you don’t want to do that…stay at a hotel where no one will care.</p>
<p>You are not a parent, and yet you seem to always know best what parents should be doing in parent situations. Sorry, but I find this perplexing.</p>
<p>Jara…easy solution…come home with clean clothes.</p>
<p>Our kids have been home a lot, all of them, due to very sad circumstances. Two deaths, including that of my MIL who just didn’t wake up one morning. She had been in stellar health. So, they all rushed home, and needed the funeral blacks, good shoes, the whole nine yards, and they trashed my house. I was not in my usual drill sergeant mode, and, they let it all rip. I guess I didn’t teach them well. They all had to rush back, leaving the house a mess, their leavings everywhere. frig depleted. And then, sadly, they were back a week later doing the same. With my mom so ill, I couldn’t do much, so I’m looking at a disaster zone going into the holidays. My laundry room is full, the bathrooms have towels and clothes strewn, toiletries out. It’s snowing and I have one supposed to come in later today. I’m one beat woman. </p>
<p>Cpte…hope the kids step up during this visit! If not…delegate jobs! You can’t do it all!!</p>