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Don’t see the problem with a parent shopping for their kid’s dorm alone. I’m assuming this is not where the problem lied in this scenario.</p>
<p>Well, all I know is my daughter wanted to pick out her own things. Wouldn’t most 17 or 18 year old girls prefer to choose their own college room d</p>
<p>“kid rituals” (!?) are a drag when your birthday falls on a date during winter break and you are far from school friends. Dinner with the parents. This has always been my D’s cross to bear. (sometimes things are a family event for a reason)
But carry on, I love ironic parenting advice from non parents.</p>
<p>Oh, I see, TheGFG. I didn’t know she was flying blind into BB&B. My mom usually ended up at BB&B by herself because my work schedule never coincided with her work schedule. If she didn’t take it upon herself and go out to BB&B after work most days, the majority of my dorm items would have never been purchased. My siblings and I did tell her what we wanted ahead of time and circled items in the brochure. If she saw something we may have liked, she called us or, if she couldn’t reach us, she would buy it and return it if we didnt like it. If anything, I viewed her eagerness to buy tons of items for us cute. It showed she cared.</p>
<p>Touchy . . . How am I giving advice? Do whatever you want – spend 24-7 with your child, host their 21st birthday, their bachelor parties, or their honeymoon night for all I care. Just look around to see if you are annoying the HELL out of everyone else – you will know when you see rolling of the eyes or blank stares out the window as you speak.</p>
<p>Haha – gouf78 – yes, inviting my college aged kids and their friends to dinners at nice places has usually worked pretty well for me too.</p>
<p>aj725, I understand your original post and I agree and empathize. Poor son. Hope it makes it.</p>
<p>As to 21st birthdays, my D1 turned 21 several times. Meaning she had a celebration with college friends right after finals but a day or two before her birthday, then with high school friends when they all got back to town after the school year ended (after her birthday), and then, yes, with us on the actual day. Pat Green was playing at Billy Bob’s, so she was all too happy to spend it there with us and a bunch of our friends and their same age kids with whom she had grown up. Vegas, no, but it was still a family birthday celebration. But my kids are weird like that…they actually enjoy our company. :)</p>
<p>We have celebrations to that of what Nrdsb4 described. Multiple outtings with your different groups of people. However, on my siblings 21st birthdays we all went out and each family member bought the birthday person a drink. We all have fun when we are together and we enjoy each other’s company. I don’t see why a 21st birthday has to be a “kid” ritual. What is a “kid” ritual in the first place??</p>
<p>The good news about the original post is that the mom does live across the country, so really won’t show up on campus all that often. And our OP now knows what she looks like and can avoid her at future events. Problem solved… there have been annoying parents around since the beginning of time, I actually knew a few back when I was in college and was thankful they were not MY parents. OP, could be worse, could be your own parent and you would be stuck with her all the time – then we would all be avoiding you. :)</p>
<p>The college admin people I know at a bunch of schools say they’ve been dealing with a big upswing in parents calling … about roommate issues, class schedules, grades, the food. </p>
<p>One of my kids is now in Europe for a semester. Will return in December and 2 days later fly off to visit her boy friend back at school.</p>
<p>In my inlaws case, the helicoptering ended at death. Bad thing was, they not only helicoptered my husband, but my son, their grandson, as well. No sooner did FIL pass away did son go away to another state to work, drive a car to and from work, and even travel to different parts of the country, BY HIMSELF, for work and pleasure. Believe you me, if they were still alive, I would have accompanied him to those conferences, at their insistence, and he would have spent both of the past summers on the couch, rather than making money and getting job experience.</p>
<p>I am going to confess here…My firm needed someone at very last minute to go up to my D2’s school for a recruiting event and I raised my hand just so I could have dinner with D2. I ended up speaking with over 100+ students and standing on my feet all day just so I could spend few hours with D2.</p>
<p>Oldfort - I think parents have been doing that since the beginning of time – getting a business trip that’ll take them to or near that kids for a few hours/meal etc. I actually don’t see anything wrong with that presuming the parent is not spending the entire recruiting event talking to others about their kid or gathering advice for their kid, which I’m sure you didn’t.</p>
<p>Montegut - How does it work with grandparents being that involved with grandkids? They would command their own kids to do certain things for their grandkids? Never had any kind of experience with that as my own grandparents were quite old by the time I hit high school/college and frankly I was not fascinating to them being one of the youngest in a long line of grandkids – they had been there and done that for a long time.</p>
<p>Lergnom - one of the administrators at the table said the same when that mom left, that they are getting a lot more calls from parents about issues that parents did not even used to know/care about like college extracurriculars and many parents are saying “do you know how much I am paying - I am the customer, my kid needs a club formed on x issue.”</p>
<p>My kid stood in line at the career fair, when she was in front of the line she hugged me and gave me a kiss. I had to tell other students that they shouldn’t do that.</p>
<p>I am not getting the whole issue with the mom going to BBB alone. Do you know where the daughter was and why? Not every young person is at home and on the grid the summer before college, and not every girl has an interest in decor.</p>
<p>Oldfort, that was a fantastic story!</p>
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<p>This horrifies me. It sounds like hazing.</p>
<p>How many drinks was that? Five? Six? </p>
<p>Did the young people even want to drink alcohol? Did they have a choice?</p>
<p>It’s bad enough when friends pressure young people to drink too much. Why would a family do it?</p>
<p>I would have been the mom at BBB alone. My one dd has absolutely no interest in shopping. She would have gone to college with just a toothbrush if I had let her. And I probably do helicopter my grandson a bit. If you don’t have grandchildren, wait and see how you act. I think a lot depends on the child. Some kids you worry more about. I could drop my youngest dd off in the deepest jungle and she would be fine on her own.</p>
<p>The main point of my BB&B post was to give the OP some perspective on why mothers can be a little crazy when their child goes off to college. This lady went on and on for an hour about her own and the D’s life story, her chosen college, the sport she plays, her boyfriend, the fears mom has about the D being lonely, etc. etc. and I was a perfect stranger! The fact that her D wasn’t with her in the store was secondary, and may or be significant in a discussion of helicoptering. In one family, a mom choosing her D’s d</p>
<p>TheGFG, in fact the reason most of us are on cc is that we want to be involved with our kids life but are trying to give them space so we chat amongst ourselves about their classes, their room mates, their professors etc. Some people have no one to chat with so they do so with any available set of ears.</p>