<p>I guess I’m a complete failure–last year when my D went off to school, I didn’t even go when she moved in. I had big work deadlines, sure, but the real reason was, I was afraid I’d lose it and get emotional!</p>
<p>So my H drove her, I know he did plenty of carrying and some assembling but I’m pretty sure she did most of the unpacking herself. And she’s fine…</p>
<p>If I had gone I’d probably have a wonderful “embarrassing parent” story!</p>
<p>Great thread! the 2-pair underwear is classic for mothers-of-boys. I thought I was going to be good (aka not-too-embarrassing), but messed it up by delegating tasks according to interests and abilities. H (set up desk/connections), I did the bed, S was to unpack and arrange his art supplies, etc (majority of his luggage) and D (fashionista) would unpack and arrange by color/season the relatively small amount of clothes into the teeny-tiny alcove with metal bar (top-ten university’s idea of “closet”) and the small bureau…S didn’t protest at the delegation but he probably forgot that he had done the clothes packing… until little sis "(15 years old)…screeched "“eeeewwww! I CANT BELIEVE YOU HAVE THESE AND YOUR GIRLFRIEND IS BACK IN RICHMOND”…while waving a packet of condoms found hidden amongst the socks. Certainly got the attention of the roomate and roomates’ parents. … S looked horrified and clearly wanted to murder little sister. I whisked them out of her hand and tossed them in the top drawer…but then made matters worse by saying to S …“don’t forget where I put them.” Why o why???</p>
<p>^^I take comfort that these are the stories from which family legends are born. After my death, I am sure that grand children and great grandchildren complaining about embarrassing parents will be told…“Ha! you think this is bad, let me tell you about Nana on move in day…”</p>
<p>Anybody see the film “Cherry”? I liked the move-in scene where the mother tries to hang the student’s framed awards on the Ivy League dorm room wall. Mom: “Well, doctors and dentists do it.” … Son: “Great, I can put out some magazines and make this look like a dentist’s waiting room.”</p>
<p>“epiphany,
I think my parents were worse failures in helicoptering , they dropped me at the curb at the airport with a box and a suitcase, and that was just fine with me!”</p>
<p>Same here and I went off to a college 2000 miles away sight unseen! My parents didn’t even visit until sometime in my junior year and then only because they booked a skiing trip to Vail with another couple.</p>
<p>This is segueing to moving in, instead of faux pas, so I’ll continue that. I don’t know how people DON’T help unpack, or how you raise your teenagers to be able to handle it alone - we clearly failed. S was in a pre-Orientation program and was on campus a few weeks (in a different room), and in his final room a few days before we arrived for Orientation. He hadn’t unpacked, although there were a few things on hangers in the teeny tiny closet and he had made the bed (making bed = putting on sheets at some time in the past, not tidying!). The suitcases were both full and lying open on the teeny tiny floor. His dirty laundry and clean laundry were crammed into two different pillowcases and I don’t know which was which (and I’m not sure he did). His sheets were covered with toothpaste (?!? - fortunately there was a spare set) and all his drawers (not enough drawers) were empty. </p>
<p>H, S, and I went to Target to try to decide what storage to buy (he also wanted some sort of night stand for the top bunk). We (all three of us participated in all parts except the paying) decided to make a tower of plastic drawers for his nightstand, bought a laundry basket, unpacked fairly organizedly for the most part, rearranged the furniture to be more functional, uncovered the brownies I had sent a week earlier, bought bricks and boards for a monitor stand, took most of the suitcases away, and stored the coat and quilt under the bed in the one remaining suitcase. He now claims that the floor is mostly clean except in the corners and that he puts his laundry away after doing it because he only has one basket so he has to. I hope that’s true. I hope he doesn’t remember that pillowcases can also hold dirty and/or clean clothes.</p>
<p>From our last video chat, I see that his roomie’s teeny tiny closet has about three shirts hanging in it. My S said at orientation that he thinks roomie plans to live out of large rubbermaid tubs all year.</p>
<p>In the late 1970’s, the mom of one of my freshman roommates went out and bought matching comforters, pillow shams, waste baskets, desk blotters, and perhaps something else for her daughter and the other two of us in this one-room triple. She felt the room needed to be coordinated. She did this completely unasked. As a matter of fact, we had no idea she was going to do this, and my parents wound up having to take my wastebasket and blotter home.</p>
<p>She then presented my parents with a bill for $30, a huge fortune in those days. My parents had already spent every penny they could on the tuition bill, and everything else was for me to pay. I think I spent half of my semester’s budget on those items!</p>
<p>Move in craziness is not anything new. I recall that my roommate did not think that her mother had over-stepped any boundaries. However, MY parents still remember this mother.</p>
<p>I completely forgot. When H moved into a 4 person suite 30 years ago, he / his parents had unpacked, parents were saying goodbye. All of a sudden my MIL took out H’s childhood Teddy bear – that he hadn’t probably seen since he was 3 – and put it on the bed, saying “I’m sure you wanted Cuddles (or whatever the bear’s name was).” In front of 3 guys. H grew up with this nonsense and attention getting so he can laugh it off but I’m sure he was mortified. </p>
<p>And for all those packing birth control for sons, let’s just say it’s a good idea for all to know where it’s packed and to have a plan for where it will be stowed, so no one waves around a pack and says “where so I put these?”</p>
<p>
Please congratulate your husband for not killing his mother and the three witnesses on the spot. How horrible!</p>
<p>Both of my girls let me chat up anyone I find, any age, who’s willing to chat back. They will not let us touch a thing, once it gets to their rooms. This year I tried to place the fan on the dresser and #2 got annoyed. They want to do it themselves. Wouldn’t even let DH plug in the frig. Bless 'em. They want the WalMart run, are willing to have us head to the bookstore or dining hall with them, still don’t stop us from talking to anyone- but don’t touch their rooms. </p>
<p>Speaking of condoms: freshman year, D1 texted me a pic of the box of condoms in the hall bathroom, available to anyone who needs-- this was the girls floor. Oh, college life.</p>
<p>One of my fellow RAs had a mother approach her without her student saying she needed to get in to her daughter’s room. We can do lockouts without forms or charges on move-in weekend, but the student has to be present and provide ID so we know it’s really their room. When the RA explained this to the mom, she berated the RA and demanded to speak with a supervisor. Of course, once the supervisor explained it, the mom backed right off. Sigh.</p>
<p>On a similar note, all RAs arrive at our school 2 weeks early for training. A few days after I moved in, I noticed a young woman and her family wandering around my quad and peering in windows. I asked if I could help them, and the parents explained that she was moving in to the building in a couple of weeks and they had come just to look around. I told them I couldn’t let them into the building, but they could look at my room to get a sense (we have studio apartments that are very similar to what the residents have). As it turns out, the girl is now one of my residents and quite the sweetheart.</p>
<p>No other fun move-in stories that I can think of, but I do have a few good Orientation stories from the past two years…</p>
<p>We have the type of program where students register for fall classes on day two. We are told and told that parents are NOT allowed in the Reg Labs, and shouldn’t be told where they are. I was walking somewhere with a colleague when a parent stopped us and asked where the Reg Labs were. We responded with something like “Oh, they’re all in different areas all over campus, we don’t have access to the grid today” (which we didn’t, being assigned to parent orientation.) The parent responded, “Oh, but I’m a teacher, I can help!” “Sorry, we just don’t know that information.” He was pretty nice about it.</p>
<p>When I was sitting in on a parent orientation “Advising ABCs” session, they came to the Q&A session. Parent asked how they can get access to their student’s grades. The faculty running the session explained that because of FERPA, the school can’t release anything to the parents unless the student signs a release. Parent responds, “Ok, and where can I get one of those?”</p>
<p>Collective groan from the Orientation Leaders in the room.</p>
<p>And a completely off-topic, but interesting, RA story:
Last year I worked in an exclusively-freshmen building. A few weeks into the semester, I get a call from the Housing office saying that Jenny’s parents just called because they haven’t heard from her in a few DAYS. Would I please go check on her? (Keep in mind little Jenny isn’t even one of my residents.)</p>
<p>I go over to Jenny’s house. The roommates say they haven’t heard from her since Thursday (it was Monday or Tuesday) and she was supposed to be back yesterday…she missed class this morning which isn’t like her.</p>
<p>Long story short, we had to call the police and report her missing. About half an hour after the police left, I get a phonecall that she waltzed in. She had gone to a music festival with her boyfriend and decided to stay an extra day. Oy vey.</p>
<p>I think I told this story on CC a year or two ago.</p>
<p>While moving my son in to his freshman dorm room, I went down the hall to the women’s bathroom, and found a mother and daughter whispering furiously in a corner, very agitated.</p>
<p>Why?
Move in times were alphabetical,
This girl and her mom had moved her stuff in to the room a couple of hours earlier, at the assigned time, made the bed, put stuff on the desk, and then gone to make a Target run.</p>
<p>The rooms in the dorm are completely symmetircal, not like there is a difference between the two sides, etc.</p>
<p>Girl and her mother returned to find that the roomie and her mother had arrived, unmade the girls bed and desk, dumping everyything in a large trashbag, and had remade the beds and desks, rearranged the furniture, etc.</p>
<p>Girl #1 had very tailored taste…her bedding was black and white, very sophisticated. Girl#2–everything was pink, pink,pink with sequins and glitter.</p>
<p>Mother of Girl#2 saw absolutely no problem with what they had done…her daughter had “always dreamed” of setting up her dorm room “just so”…and of course, the whole room had to match…could not contemplate the thought that maybe the roomie had also had dreams of setting up her dorm room in her own imagination.</p>
<p>Girl#1 and her mother were in the bathroom trying to figure out how to handle the situation! She didn’t want to start out on a bad footing with the roomie and couldn’t figure out whether to stick up for herself or not.</p>
<p>Thank goodness, she ended up going back to the room and insisted on having the furniture put back in its original configuration…she did not want the beds touching in an L shape, and she insisted on using her own bedding.</p>
<p>I’m not sure what happened but son reported Girl#2 left the floor midway during first semester…she had a lot of problems adjusting apparently.</p>
<p>
At S’s orientation a meeting on Campus Security was held for the parents. Someone asked if their kid disappears how will that become known. It really brought home the fact that as parents we have never been more than a few hours from knowing where our kids are. The idea that they could somehow be missing for days or even months and maybe no one would notice borders on the terrifying. CS stated that the roommates and friends often take on the role of looking out for each other previously played by the parents. When S comes home for the night he lets his roommate know he will be gone. </p>
<p>You make it seem as if these parents were overprotective, but with the stories of missing college girls permeating the news, it’s easy to understand their concern.</p>
<p>Just a little sidebar. I lived in the Mich. and Mass. during high school in the 1970’s. In Michigan, if you were in high school, you did anything you could do to not be seen with your parents in public (shopping, church, anywhere). For guys, being seen with your mother was even worse than being seen with your father. I was rather shocked at how agreeable high schoolers in Mass. were to be seen with parents. I could never shake the Michigan approach, and even as an undergrad in Boston I would insist that my parents pick me up and drop me off a block from my dorm when they visited.</p>
<p>Anybody else notice regional differences? Would be helpful if posters here indicated which region they were from and where the college was. Based on my own experiences, I’d be shocked if the mothers cleaning and unpacking wasn’t more of a Northeast thing than a Midwest thing. (Have no idea about South and West.)******</p>
<p>On the subject of missing college students. My D came in late on the Friday night before Hurricane Irene. She noticed that Roomie1 was not there, but didn’t think about it at the time. She woke up the morning and noticed that Roomie1’s laundry and laptop were gone. D texted her to see where she was, especially with the upcoming hurricane. There was no response. Roomie2 also did not know where Roomie1 was. Both girls assumed that she had gone home, but she never told them.</p>
<p>Roomie1 came back Monday morning at 7AM. She had indeed gone home for the weekend. When the other girls mentioned that they were concerned about her, especially with the hurricane, Roomie1 could not understand why they even cared where she was. They asked that in the future, a note “Gone home for the weekend” would be nice.</p>
<p>You all are giving me really good ideas on HOW TO get a reaction from my son on move in day. I especially like the teddy bear and condom ideas! LOL
Just kidding, but I might have to tease him a little with those!
“you better watch it, or I will introduce all your roomates to Mr. Bear on move in day”
“mess with me and I will have a safe sex talk with your roommates on move in day”. </p>
<p>HaHa…this could be a little fun!!</p>
<p>I think it’s funny when parents ask what will be done to prevent their child from drinking. Do these people really think a school has the resources to watch over every kid to make sure no one underage drinks? Do they think RA’s do bed checks and booze checks each night?</p>
<p>One of my relatives was thrilled to learn that Vandy is a “dry campus”…she thought that meant that no kids would be drinking ever…even those of age.</p>
<p>Older son’s grad school serves alcohol in at least 3 locations on campus that I’ve discovered.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Put them in Cuddles…</p>
<p>Now ellemenope…that is an awesome idea! LOL</p>
<p>I still think the need for cleaning depends on the colleges- my kids’ rooms (NE) were in great shape. OTOH, one dau and I toured a college in MA where they actually took us to see a sample room- the most gawd-awful place. Torn screens, dirty windows with dead bugs, beat-up furniture, walls with punch outs, grimy rug, etc. Worse: it was a triple with three beds, two dressers, two closets- and the guide told us the students just figured out how to fit in that set-up. What were they thinking? It’s a 2nd (maybe 3rd) tier school that’s occasionally named on CC.</p>
<p>ps. prevent them from drinking? It’s allowed at my kids’ as long as it stays inside.</p>