<p>Well, I finished my Freshman year and I have to say that I completely thrived on the independence. Being able to go anywhere/do anything without asking telling anyone, spontaneous weekend trips with friends to distant cities without telling/asking anyone, buying/making your own food, no curfews or chores and and just living life the way you want without anyone else to tell you to do otherwise. </p>
<p>Now I'm home, as are most of us, and I'm reacclimated into the world of curfews, bed times, rules, chores, naggy parents and endless guidelines. And it's driving me absolutely nuts. I feel like I can live independently (as I've done for 9 months) and I dont need this **** from them. But my parents don't seem to care or understand.</p>
<p>Does anyone share similar feelings now that we're home? What do you do to cope with it?</p>
<p>Most definitely! Part of why I’ve chosen to stay on campus this summer lol.</p>
<p>But even though school has given you some degree of independence, remember that it’s still your parents who are paying the bills and unless you’re paying some sort of rent, then it’s their house and their rules.</p>
<p>Best way to cope? Keep the drama to a minimum, follow their rules (which will make them more inclined to be lenient), and count down the days until school starts again!</p>
<p>Ok, you need to have a talk with your parents. Doing chores to help pay your way in the house is completely reasonable, a bed time is just ridiculous babying.</p>
<p>A curfew is reasonable if it is their car you are driving. </p>
<p>This is why I stay at school for the summer. Even when I came home after sophomore year they tried to enforce a 10 pm bedtime on me, but realized it wouldn’t quite work since I had a lab until 9:30 twice a week half an hour away. I had a strict 8 pm bedtime all through high school. I don’t miss it one bit.</p>
<p>I love paying for my school, housing, food, and bills completely on my own. I’m grateful that they pay for my car insurance and the gas it takes me to get home, but all in all I couldn’t go back to living with them.</p>
<p>Your parents dont seem like they really want you there if they make you do all of that but they own the house so i guess they have the right to tell you to do stuff. And i bet you they like having you there so they can be bossy and tell you to do stuff when they want cause they didnt get to all year. But they are letting you stay there for free so thats good.</p>
<p>Honestly, as long as you’re living with them they can set the rules. Sucks, but truth. </p>
<p>If I had parents like that, there’s no way I’d ever move home. I’ve been working 12 hour days though so they won’t see me for days at a time and not bat an eyelash.</p>
<p>My parents are kinda meh. The only thing is that they moved in the middle of my freshman year so I can’t really go anywhere anyway. They moved wayyyyy out in the country where there isn’t anything to do…so…no need for freedom anyway:/</p>
<p>It’s not that my parents are overly strict, it’s more that my friends all live elsewhere in the country, so I don’t have anyone to hang out with here. They have been bugging me to get a job though, which is annoying.</p>
<p>I definitely feel like I’m less independent at home than at school. I don’t mind it too much if I’m just home for a couple weeks (like this summer - I’m going to DC for an internship, and last summer - I went to Ecuador for study abroad). But if I’m home for longer than 3 weeks they start to drive me crazy (like how it was for me living/working at home after freshman year). My parents actually give me a lot of freedom - don’t give me many chores, try but fail to enforce a 1am curfew, let me hang out with whoever, use their cars whenever they aren’t using them, trust me to be responsible etc. But I still can’t handle it, I like living with people my own age/being on my own more. And I could do without the nagging about sleeping well, exercising constantly, finding a temp job (I’m only home for 3 weeks), their micromanaging of my finances etc.</p>
<p>I came home from school after freshman year, and my mother trusted me. It was amazing.
My curfew disappeared. I now often leave the house at 9 or 10 and return at 3. She’s also completely fine with calls at one telling her I’m spending the night at a friend’s place. (She realizes this means I’m drinking. But she’s glad I’ve never driven drunk.) She trusts me to drive wherever. Like when my friends came up last summer and we drove to Brooklyn for a music festival. (She never trusted me in the city alone before)</p>
<p>She does nag me to do chores, but I do them pretty willingly. My only objection comes from being the oldest of four kids and being the only one ever asked to do anything.</p>
<p>My father is another story though. He tried to yell at me over spring break for not asking permission to go to the mall with friends. My mom overheard the conversation and laughed at him. He has also overheard me telling my mom I would be back around midnight (an earliesh night for me) and he screamed that it was way too late for me to be out. If I had two parents like that I would have been gone a while ago. I’m spending the summer in my college town, but for different reasons.</p>