I heard you've been down to the college campus again for the weekend? I think one of you said on Facebook that it was your 12th visit down this year?
Shock and Awe. I've only been once.
I know you're not trying to 1-up me or, in this case, 11-up me. I've packed 4 kids off to college so far and the two who have graduated have gone on to pursue post-graduate degrees, so it's hardly my first rodeo in this arena.
Not only have I sent more kids to college than most women have given birth to, but I attended university myself many years ago. It was a blast. I loved every minute of it. As tempting as it is to re-live it all, I'm not trying to re-create my Then Self to hang out with my Now Kids.
But I digress. Let's get back to these epic weekends y'all share with the kiddos. I hear y'all are the life of the party! Forever 51! Rocking those Miss Me Jeans, dancing on the tables and such. Word has it the older chics can really hold their liquor...until they can't.
And you swear like sailors. That's so lit. The kids love it when their peers' parents are dropping F-bombs like it ain't no thang.
All the kids adore it when y'all go out with them. Mainly because you pick up the entire bar tab. It's so generous of you to sponsor those outings for the little darlings. Reminds me of those field trips we used to chaperone back in the day (only now it involves under-aged drinking with a side order of legal ramifications.)
All that aside, you're totes on-fleek.
There are several reasons most moms aren't over there on campus whooping it up with our kids. For starters, we already went to college, we have jobs, responsibilities and other children we are actively raising. And for the most part we've outgrown our own FOMO.
Perhaps even more compelling is the fact that I can count on one hand the times my parents visited the campus when I was in college, including registration and graduation.
Don't get me wrong; they loved us and picked up the tuition tab, but they recognized the line between adulthood, childhood and the vast gray area in between.
-Our parents didn't contact our professors to negotiate grades.
-Our landlords were ours to deal with.
-Our roommate squabbles were ours to work through without our parents' intervention.
-Our friends were OUR friends. Our parents didn't call, text or otherwise "reach-out" to them unless it was life or death.
When we made mistakes and got it wrong, our parents stood down and let us suffer the consequences. They didn't swoop in to put an elaborate backspin on our behavior, not because they weren't BA, but because they were.
And, they sure as Hell didn't party with us. Not because we weren't all tons of fun, but because they knew instinctively that certain behaviors blurred the lines and made it next to impossible to do their primary job. After all, it's hard to be taken seriously as an authority figure when your own children have carted your ass home inebriated.
In short, our parents weren't hovering over campus with their chopper blades slicing incessantly through the air - forever altering the atmosphere of our college maturation process.
I heard there's an officially sanctioned "Mom's Weekend" coming up in a few months. I can hardly wait. I'll dig around in the back of my closet for some vintage Miss Me Jeans, and a sweatshirt in our team's colors. I can't wait to spend the entire weekend with you and our co-eds, experiencing the thrill of college life again through all of your eyes.
Until then, You'll just have to "Miss Me" on your own...
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