<p>Wait a minute, we’re parents. Who says that all our actions have to be rational? ;)</p>
<p>Like shrinkrap, we didn’t see a dorm bathroom at move-in so we didn’t have an opportunity to decide to clean it or not. But consider: this is a big big change for the freshmen. They’ve got a lot to sort out in these first few days and hours. D1’s cross-country move-in (after a pre-orientation backpacking trip which was interrupted by Hurricane Irene) was followed by five days packed to the gills with orientation activities and little downtime. Were we willing to do things to help out, things that would keep down her stress level, even though these might be things that we’d expect her to do herself at other times? You betcha.</p>
<p>“By arranging - do you mean how the furniture (beds, dressers, desk) itself is laid out (which, in many cases, there’s nothing to arrange - it may only fit one way) or do you mean arranging the things themselves (underwear in this drawer and socks in that drawer)?” </p>
<p>I mean all that stuff. I understand helping the student carry stuff into the room, and taking him/her on a run to Target to buy miscellaneous things, but beyond that? The kid is old enough to vote and has 2250 SATs…don’t you think it’s about time she learned how to put away her undies and clean a toilet, and he figured out where to stow his condoms and how to assemble a bookshelf? </p>
<p>Thousands of other 18-year-olds, often with less-gaudy academic credentials, quickly learn how to make a bed perfectly, how to assemble an automatic rifle in seconds, and how to do a million other impossible tasks while completely exhausted.</p>
<p>I’m with Schmaltz. Having their rooms in order just wasn’t important to me or DH and both girls felt it was their turf. Being able to spend the last bits of time with them- heading to WalMart or the bookstore, meeting kids on their floor, checking out the dorm common rooms- was more important. If I had come in and seen another parent cleaning a bathroom… I don’t get moms unpacking a young man’s underwear, especially if a roommate is around. But, I accept your explanations.
We showed them how to connect their printers before leaving home and one of mine will never have neat drawers. I do, however, clean their rooms at home, while they’re gone. And, I send them homemade cookies once or twice/semester and an occasional postcard from our city or wherever Dad and I have been, ok?</p>
<p>I see it differently - I see it as just part of being a helpful person who is on the same “team.” I’m shortly going to be helping my mother pack / unpack / arrange things for her move from the 'burbs back into the city – she’s certainly capable (no physical issues or limitations), but it’s nice to have an extra hand. I was THERE, so to me that’s just part of the whole purpose of being there - to be the helping hand to put the pants on the hangers while kid puts the t-shirts in the drawer, that type of thing. It’s not a function of not believing they are incapable of doing it. </p>
<p>It’s the same principle as this scenario – if H and I pull into the garage having done a Costco run, it’s expected that everyone in the house comes and lends a quick hand to carry things into the house and put them away - unless they’re doing something critically important at the time, but as brain surgery usually isn’t being performed in our living room, there’s very little that can’t be interrupted for a few minutes to lend a helping hand. Helping isn’t infantilizing. Well, I suppose it can be, but that’s not what I’m talking about. That’s why we are a family – we help each other – as opposed to just random people who share a house.</p>
<p>I thought when you were all talking about cleaning bathrooms, you were talking about bathrooms that were shared by a SMALL group of people - like 4, 6, 8 people in a suite, that type of thing, and for whom that small group would be responsible for ongoing maintenance. Are you talking about cleaning a dorm hall bathroom that has multiple stalls and showers and is going to be servicing say 20 students? </p>
<p>Personally, a) I wouldn’t have thought to check the bathroom out in the first place (unless I myself needed to use it) and b) there is no way in heck I am cleaning a communal bathroom - that’s just simply not my job, at all, any more than it would be to mow the lawn or re-shelve library books. If their cleaning / janitorial services are inadequate, then that’s their act to clean up (literally).</p>
<p>I was enjoying this thread until people starting berating others for the help they gave their child. I tend to agree with Pizzagirl in regard to the team effort. I also would tend to think that most parents on this forum have taught their children how “fold their own undies”. I believe also that most parents wouldn’t be able to keep up the pace that most of these students keep. So I would ask, lets just stick to the funny stories.</p>
<p>It’s surely the J in my Myers-Briggs typology and my penchant for order, but the idea of dumping suitcases in a room and then just leaving them as is without unpacking just doesn’t make sense to me. I’m a do-it-and-get-it-done type when it comes to stuff like that.</p>
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<p>Just to show how we are all different … my kids each have a CVS within easy walking distance of their dorms. To me, I’d rather unpack them and then later on when I’m gone, they can walk to the CVS and pick up any non-critical things they’ve forgotten.</p>
<p>Ha, I messed up on this one. I taught D how to clean a bathroom, but I didn’t even know people actually folded their undies. I thought everyone just stuffed them in the underwear drawer like me!</p>
<p>PG, I took shrinkrap’s comment about not seeing the bathroom to be humorous, especially following the discussion of some students needing to provide furniture for a common room. I need to up the smiley content of my posts to convey my tongue-in-cheekness. :D</p>
<p>Many years ago, on an entirely different website, I read about some parents who went to the student store to buy all of their freshman’s school supplies, and to pick up the student’s printer. They carried it back to the student’s dorm room, set up the printer. They did all this because their child had met some new friends and wanted to go off with them rather than running the errands. When I read this, I was appalled. Surely their child could do this on their own! I swore that this would never be us or our offspring, that they could carry their own stuff. And ours too, for that matter. :)</p>
<p>Fast forward to now. We didn’t carry D1’s stuff. She went and bought her own school supplies. She set up her computer herself. But now I understand where those parents might have been coming from. They were seeing their child making friends and connections…and at that moment, the parents might well have thought that was the most important thing for their kid to be doing at that time. Yes, it’s possible that the child was spoiled and lazy and inconsiderate, and the parents were enabling that. But I’m more inclined to give the benefit of the doubt to the parents and their motives.</p>
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<p>Me too…but it’s not my room. And we didn’t know how she wanted it organized. Most importantly, she was starving and wanted to go out to get some breakfast rather than unpack. </p>
<p>One of the best pieces of move-in advice was to take your lead from your child. If your kid wants help unpacking/assembling/setting up/cleaning and you’re there, then help. If your child is cringing at the idea of you helping, leave it be. But if everyone followed this rule, there would be no parental faux pas to read about. :)</p>
<p>In the interest of full disclosure: I did unpack this for S. But in my own defense, it was simply taking a bunch of unopened packages and putting them in the dresser drawer because, well, that was the suitcase I had happened to open. It wasn’t that mommy needed to do this for her little punkin; it was that it just didn’t make any sense to recoil in horror when that’s what was in the suitcase!</p>
<p>the main reason we had to be there when our S unloaded was to see what all had to be reloaded back into the suburban and taken back home because of lack of space. Plus we wanted to be a part of that special day. We raise our children for 18 yrs and then they move to another environment. There is absolutely nothing wrong with participating in the process. If cleaning a bathroom makes the separation easier on the parent, go for it. LOL</p>
<p>One reason I actually stay out of the unpacking is that if I put anything away, my kids claim I hid it. I asked my son if there was anything he’d like me to do and he suggested making the bed. We also spent hours (together) trying to construct a bureau that we ended up carting away as it was so awful. He’s getting a package from Elfa in the mail and will put that together himself. I’m still baffled what Tufts was thinking with his room this year. My boy is no clothes horse, but a two foot wide bureau the height of a desk seems kind of skimpy to me.</p>
<p>I completely agree with this. Freshman year our D1 was sharing a room in a 2-br college apartment with another freshman girl, and 2 other girls in the second br. D1 didn’t want us around: just help carry things in, see you later, I’ll unpack and get organized myself. We followed her lead.</p>
<p>Year 2 and again she’s in a 2-br college apartment, but now she has her own room; her apartment-mate also has a single bedroom. But this year she’s pleading with DW to come and stay a few days, help her decorate and get organized, shop for curtains and a rug for her room, some posters for the apartment’s common room, and a few additional small items of furniture beyond the bare-bones stuff provided by the college. The difference? Partly the year away made her realize how much she missed us. Partly the shared room never entirely felt like her room and she wanted help claiming this room and making it her own cozy, personal space. Partly, perhaps, a year’s more maturity made her want to invest a bit more in her physical surroundings.</p>
<p>We went with her lead on both occasions, and it seemed like the right thing to do. Bottom line, there’s no one-size-fits-all right answer here.</p>
<p>I’m a walking faux pas as a parent. Seriously. I don’t intend it at all… but to what one child was helpful or asked for was seen as intrusive and overwhelming to another. AND then there’s the it might have been fine or even appreciated one year and the next, you have done something they consider borderline insane. So… I am always merely guessing but trying to walk a fine line. Truth is… the last two years I’ve made his bed as my task of unpacking. Sure he can make his own, but it is the one skill I do really well. This year, however, son went back to school a few days early and was essentially living on the lamb until official move in. Obviously, I didn’t stick around but he did say that his bed didn’t start out nearly as comfy as I make it. </p>
<p>All I really know is that the kid has far too many clothes considering he is gone and his closet is still full!</p>
<p>S2 appreciated that I unpacked his stuff. Did not feel I was intruding. He, DH and a friend carried everything upstairs (four flights of stairs) so I could save my energy. I then repaid that by doing the part I do best. We use the Costco philosophy at our house, too.</p>
<p>Re-reading my post #183, I think the way I worded it stressed the wrong aspect of letting the kids arrange their own rooms. It isn’t that it’s time they learn how to unpack a suitcase and clean a toilet; what I was actually trying to say was that certainly these bright young people are capable of unpacking things and putting them away, so let’s treat them with some respect, give them the gift of autonomy, and let them make major decisions like which drawer the socks go in. If they run into problems assembling a lamp or hooking up the computer, asking neighboring students to lend a hand will be a great way to meet people. (Note that I’m going to refrain from my usual gender-baiting, and am not saying something like, “Surely even at Wellesley someone will know how to plug a computer into a wall.”)</p>
<p>In other words, it’s a lot different from helping an elderly parent out, because the elderly parent isn’t just then learning the exhilaration of flying solo for the first time.</p>
<p>PG, I agree with you that they can also walk to a CVS to pick up light bulbs or masking tape…as long as one is relatively near. (Both of the undergrad schools I went to were quite a ways from even a CVS, and I was basing my point on that.)</p>
so we didn’t have an opportunity to decide to clean it or not. But consider: this is a big big change for the freshmen. They’ve got a lot to sort out in these first few days and hours. D1’s cross-country move-in (after a pre-orientation backpacking trip which was interrupted by Hurricane Irene) was followed by five days packed to the gills with orientation activities and little downtime. Were we willing to do things to help out, things that would keep down her stress level, even though these might be things that we’d expect her to do herself at other times? You betcha.</p>
We use the Costco philosophy at our house, too.</p>