<p>Day 3 of summer vacation... I tip-toed upstairs this morning before work to kiss D goodbye. Tripped over young man sleeping on the floor next to her. Since her bed is about 3 inches off the ground, on or off is kind of the same...Both were fully clothed on top of the covers, including shoes. ...He's one of her "puppy-dog" friends who have more problems than she can solve - evidently called in the wee hours to say he had no safe ride home. Parents are never there. She says she swore to him that whenever he really needed her, she would be there. I'm proud that she followed through, and furious that she snuck (sneaked?) someone into our home without telling us. Plus that she didn't realize that there were better options that wouldn't result in Dad having a coronary event... I can see that this kind of "friend rescue" happens many times in dorms, but we have 2 empty bedrooms and about 4 empty couches.
In big letters: Your parent's house is not your dorm room!!!!!!!!</p>
<p>yikes, dragonmom! (And I’m having a fit about S wasting time playing computer games, and not making much effort to get a job this first week. . .)</p>
<p>That’s nice she’s helping a friend–I guess she’s heard that NEXT time she should wake up a parent and steer the friend to a couch or empty bedroom. . .</p>
<p>Isn’t it interesting that they don’t see why the communal room isn’t such a good idea? Maybe we old people just have a better imagination as to what ‘might’ happen.</p>
<p>H just left for work and noted that our 20-year old left the window open in one of the cars in the driveway–namely the one I drive–since he does not have a car. It has been pouring rain all night so the inside is soaked. </p>
<p>At this age, I like them to stop by for only short visits. The TV is turned exclusively to sports, the radio is on all the time as background noise, and the entire house is now filled with his stuff despite our best efforts to confine said junk to his room only. He seems contrite when reprimanded, but also has this vague confused puppy look that tells me nothing is actually sinking in. This one leaves on May 31st for the remainder of the summer, so I have two weeks left.</p>
<p>My reaction is the same as atomom – YIKES!!! All I know for sure is that scenario would never happen in our house since all the doors are wired into the security system and a chime sounds every time a door is opened. </p>
<p>D’s junk is, in fact, confined to her room. After being home for a week a friend came to visit and she was actually embarrassed enough to clean up – or at least stuff most of it into her closet. She leaves at the end of this week to go back to school for a 5 week summer session. We’ll miss her, of course, but it also means we have to go through the “re-entry” period all over again! And as dragonmom says, “Our house is not your dorm!”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I’m confused about what you mean here. The communal room? As in, the common room in a dorm? Or a student sharing a room with another student?</p>
<p>Anyway, it’s good that she helped her friend and kept her promise. And now, one can hope, she will realize that there are ways to do this at home that don’t involve shocking and scaring her parents, and that she can tell you.</p>
<p>My apartment feels like a huge walk-in closet at the moment. And, there is no place to unpack it all, so it may just have to stay that way for the summer. Oh well, I would rather that, than her not coming home, I suppose. First summer… maybe I will feel differently in following years.</p>
<p>As far as bringing in stray puppies, I think it’s pretty great. Sure, we may be shocked at this behavior, but aren’t we also glad that they feel confident and comfortable enough to tell their friends that they can come home with them? That means that they trust us to understand. I would definitely want another set of parents to house my D should she ever have a moment of stray puppy-dom. We really just have to catch up with the huge amount of growth that they have accomplished in the year they have been away. I know my D seems like a pretty different (in fabulous ways, thank goodness…) person.</p>
<p>Um well, it sort of is. I gave up. This is just me, but I don’t want the acrimony of trying to control their behavior color the last times they will probably live here.</p>
<p>The neatness thing, both try, but both are unbearably sloppy.</p>
<p>The staying out really late? Comes with the territory.</p>
<p>If a kid had been sneaked into DD’s room I’d be okay with it. Even if shoes had been off and under covers.</p>
<p>Serious boyfriend? Fine.</p>
<p>Platonic waif? Also fine.</p>
<p>One night stand? Well, not fine, of course, but DD would never, never do that, so that’s no on my radar screen.</p>
<p>Oh, and one side note – Freshman summer was the last time DD came home for the entire summer. She’s launched.</p>
<p>DS is here for frosh summer and I suspect it will be his last time here as well.</p>
<p>Enjoy!</p>
<p>Not the popular side, but I’m with mythmom on this one.</p>
<p>I think I’m in the latter subcategory, aka Our House IS His Dorm.</p>
<p>It’s (mostly) great to have him home though.</p>
<p>This brings me back to the days of my youth at my then bf’s house (now my H). His mom was divorced, a lovely woman who was my favorite teacher in HS, and the reason I met H. H was the oldest of four teens in the house. It was always, and I mean always, filled with stray pups. I stayed over when I was home from college sometimes, and so did some other signficant others, but most of the time, the couches and floor space were filled with various platonic waifs staying there for various reasons.</p>
<p>My MIL was basically a den mother to scores of young folks, and probably saved a few from real disasters of varoius kinds. I’m not sure I would have survived it, had I been her, but she put up with near-chaos with class and aplomb.</p>
<p>What a different time that was! Imagine a teacher now with a house full of kids from her HS staying over. All kinds of accusations and assumptions would be made. But actually, it was a safe, homey, respite for kids who sometimes needed it.</p>
<p>Maybe that experience is why I question those posts, here and otherwise, which assume proximity leads to risque behavior. (Not that there was none of that there, but it was between those who were already attached, not a case of: “omigosh, there’s a member of the opposite sex in the room–I must immediately lose all sense of control!”) :)</p>
<p>Overall, my approach mirrors Mythmom’s. Accept for the launched S, of course (but that’s another story).</p>
<p>Our sons know the rules were always no guests of the opposite sex in their bedrooms. This through girlfriends and platonic friends, etc., etc. OTOH we gave up our formal living room about 20 years ago, and it has gone from a play room to a “hang-out” room complete with electronic entertainment AND a futon (right by the front door.) So the lost puppies have a place to crash, even in the middle of the night. (Oh, and for those who think I am naive, these are OUR house rules. I have ABSOLUTELY reason to think that anything close to this is being observed anywhere else in our kids’ universe. But it’s our house, our rules - here.)</p>
<p>It’s the mess and the hours (staying up until 3 am and then sleeping until 3pm is normal? On what planet???) that get to me. Both of mine were home for about a week or so, and now they are back at their respective colleges in summer school. A week or so is just about right.</p>
<p>Moderators:</p>
<p>Thanks for doing a bang up job! There was a totally off topic and inappropriate post here a minute ago and it’s gone now. Good work!</p>
<p>Heheheh. I have successfully negotiated with my sweetie to help pay a little for son’s summer cost to sublet near his campus, so we don’t have him home all summer. He eats <em>so</em> much and drives me crazy. I love him, but after a week, he and I are both ready for him to be away at college again.</p>
<p>Well, we had high hopes that this summer after freshman year would be busy, busy, busy with a job (off-campus apartment next year) and obtaining his private pilots license (a prerequisite for courses already scheduled for the fall).</p>
<p>But this past week, in a stupid, stupid, stupid error in judgement, DS now has a severely sprained foot (possibly broken bones; no way to know yet), which looks like a loaf of pumpernickel bread…and so no job, no flying lessons, and the first floor of our house looks WORSE than a dorm room (I assume).</p>
<p>We went from a lovely family with a perfect only child (DS #2, a hs sophomore), to upheaval… What a summer it’s gonna be…</p>
<p>Ouch, poor kid! And poor family who has a grumpy, injured kid with dashed hopes sitting on the couch for weeks!</p>
<p>archiemom, it could be a whole lot worse. Check out this thread:
D failed HS drug test/expulsion – Loss of college scholarships?</p>
<p>A broken/sprained foot isn’t so bad…</p>
<p>^^^following it all^^^</p>
<p>We know we are NO WHERE near as bad…making the best of it…kicking him off the couch as often as possible…and hoping to salvage most of the summer earning period.</p>
<p>Just had to comment on the serious changes that occur when the first born arrives back home, ready to be waited-on, and bringing all his bad habits with him (complicated by his incapacitation…and total self-absorbsion…). And we love him totally, inspite…</p>
<p>I love my kids but…
GIVE ME MY EMPTY NEST BACK!!!
no car keys, no gas, kids everywhere, belongings everywhere, phone calls all day at work, laundry. laundry, laundry, friends sleeping…everywhere, all my toiletries gone, clothes misplaced…</p>
<p>archiemom: I will trade you my able-bodied kid who would just LOVE to sit on the couch (floor, bed, etc) all summer–for your injured kid who wants to work. (I’m sure my kid would break his own foot if he thought it would get him out of a summer job–which he doesn’t seem to be in a hurry to find). Honestly, for the price of a plane ticket, I’d send him back to school tomorrow.</p>