Anyone else have children home from college?

[tinkerbell41]

I love mine, I mean love. But I am struggling with feeling obligated to stay home guarding the gate. I just feel like I should be home, being with her but I resent having my "new" schedule interrupted. It's not just Christmas break, she's home every weekend. I want to start my new life and feel still tied to my domestic duties.
You know she lives her life and comes home and "What's for dinner? Can you do this or that?"
I'm at the breaking point today.

[tigereye]

1. isn't that interesting- the expectations that students have

that Mom should just drop everything and go back to taking care of em like in the past. I seem to recall that my mom usually offered to cook, but that may have been since there were still a few kids at home at the time I went to college. I think I tried to be a bit more independent when I visited. After a while I got used to being away (and transferred to another urban school) and I was home much less.


My kid is only 14, so I'm not there yet. :D

[tinkerbell41]

2. Well it's either expectations or

Just falling into old patterns. Could be my fault.
And just wait, you fall to pieces when they leave, actually about a year before the event and when they come back well......

[hayu_lol]

3. To them it is home...

and they expect it not to change. Many make it clear that they don't want to be told what to do...but everything else should be changeless.

Many parents whose kids have flown the coop are upset today as their kids return home, sometimes dragging kids and spouses...lol. Sometimes this is good and sometimes I am reminded of that famous Chinese curse: "May you live in interesting times."

[tinkerbell41]

10. LOL

Spot on!

[seabeyond]

4. geeez.... lay it out. she is a big girl. and big brain. she is going to college.

talking to my boys about so many things the other day, .... and one of the things was in raising them, they are not center. dad and i are the center, they are along for the ride. as much as i love them, they have their life to live. and hubby and i are creating our life to live.

[Lars39]

5. Heh, I'll never forget the weekend I'd gotten a ride home

And my parents had gone on a vacation to DC without me. No food in the house,had to scramble to find a way back to college. I never took anything for granted after that weekend. :D

[tinkerbell41]

11. Funny

I should try it. Might "shake" things up

[femmocrat]

6. It's only temporary.... don't get so stressed out about it.

She will come home less and less as the years go by and you will have many years of having an "empty nest". Enjoy your time together because it passes very quickly. Good luck! :hug:

[tinkerbell41]

12. Thanks.

I am happy every Friday but by Sunday..... She's a junior. But you are right, I am trying to hang on to any time together. It's just the edge of the nest she is teetering on, and she keeps hopping back in. But so do I. Comfort breeds "insanity"???

[mnhtnbb]

7. I do. Last Monday morning I couldn't get my car out due to ice

buses were running limited schedule, so I decided to walk to an appointment I had nearby.
My cell rang when I was about 15 minutes in to the 45 minute walk and it was the son home
from college who had just gotten up and was wondering how he was going to get to his shift as host at a local restaurant. I told him I couldn't help him and he'd have to check the bus schedule or walk himself!

So funny. He just automatically figured mom would give him a ride. (He doesn't drive due to a vision impairment.)

[tinkerbell41]

13. Oh god

I can totally relate. Sounds just like the typical scenario here. Poor thing. And I don't mean it sarcastically. Just what a shock to him.

[rainbow4321]

8. Ah, yes, been there, done that..kinda still am

I know this is long, but maybe it will make you feel like you are not alone with this situation.


Years ago, when my daughter was still in high school, I had a family member who was going thru that and she warned me when she heard me starting to pout about how my oldest would be going away to college and how the house would not be the same.
What she said: You will find that when that when the kid who has gone off to school/whatever else comes home, it totally changes the dynamics of the house and while you are happy to have your offspring back for a few days, you will find yourself relieved when he/she goes back to school.

And she was right. Not so much the first year of college, but definitely by her 2nd year and after.
I'm a single mom and my youngest was still at home when my oldest went away to college. We re-adjusted, got set in our "new" schedule, became pretty set in our ways.

I still looked forward to her visits, don't get me wrong, but at the same time, her visits upset the whole new set of dynamics. You feel like you need to entertain them, rearrange your meal schedule (in our case, I had stopped cooking any real meals since me and the youngest were never home at the same time because of our conflicting work schedules and her social life), and every other aspect of your once-new-but-now-normal schedule/life.

The oldest has graduated, moved to the East Coast to live but does a travelling job 3 months out of the year. She usually makes a pitstop back here to see us before she goes back to the East Coast.

Same. Awkward. Situation.

She blew into town one night last week, got appalled when she found out that her younger sister had planned a date with her boyfriend that same night. So the date was cancelled and we all went out to eat.

Then I find out her coming here was a one night deal, she was leaving for a week to go see a friend in another city near us, but would be back for a few days to "see us" again. So now I have a shitload of her stuff all over my apartment..SHE is not here, but her stuff is. And I had to be the one to call her today to find out WHEN she was coming back.
She goes back to the coast on Thursday.
The only sad part out of all this is that she and her sister were sooooo close when they were younger, but now with the older one breezing in and out of our lives, the younger one has a "I don't really care, I'm not changing my work/socal schedule when she is here, SHE is the one who keeps leaving us". Which then puts me in the middle because the older one gets her feelings hurt. All I can do is shrug and say "I don't know what to do".

[tinkerbell41]

14. Perfect.

Thank you. I am single mom also, and she is my only. And what you described I can totally picture, and feel the angst. In your head you have a plan and they have a totally different one in their head and OOPS they just figure you knew, and you figured you were on the same track.
I can also get the younger one's feelings. You know I read all these articles and books(How I roll)
about preparing yourself and your kid for departure to College, and how hard it would be, but I never came across any explaining this end of it. Kinda like how all the "parenting" books stop at age 13. NO ONE knows what to do. Funny.

[tigereye]

24. a colleague wrote a book about parenting college students

- but she couldn't get anyone to buy or publish it! :D

[tinkerbell41]

27. I would've loved it!

I know life is unpredictable, but for me if I at least have a clue, a roadmap, something.
I always read "directions".:)

[tigereye]

28. I should ask her if she e-published it...

:hi: More and more college students live at home, too, at least for a while.

[HopeHoops]

9. I've got one home now, along with her boyfriend.

[tinkerbell41]

15. I think I'd pitch a tent

For myself in the backyard. Too much craziness for me. A whole new entity thrown in the mix.
(not religious) I'll pray for you. :)

[HopeHoops]

16. Nah, they're all good kids. Three daughters and a boyfriend in tow.

They pulled out some tubs of Lego a couple days ago and were all lost in creating castles, forts, space stations, etc. - INCLUDING my wife!

[tinkerbell41]

19. Cute!

Enjoy

[watercolors]

17. My daughter just put her son on plane back to college

She was quite happy to.Her daughter goes back in another week. She misses them greatly & looks forward to them coming home, it only last a few days & she is pulling her hair out!!
I keep reminding her we had three of them that we had to deal with , AND LAUNDRY!

[madmom]

18. I finally had to tell mine...

that my life does not get put on hold when you are not here. She would get upset if I went somewhere or did something that "I knew" she wanted to do too. I asked her if she waits to ask me along when her friends or other relatives invites her out.

[tinkerbell41]

20. OMG

Totally the picture. God forbid I do anything without her. I mean I'm twiddling my thumbs for 120 hrs a week "waiting" for the MASTER to come home. When just 3 yrs ago she couldn't get away from me fast enough. Well, I lived thru that. Don't know which is worse. PUSH and PULL

[kimi]

21. Oh, I did. He left today.

With his foreign girlfriend. What an - ahem, adventure. She comes from an Eastern European country where they do not really celebrate Christmas, so it was incumbent upon me to pull out all the stops to make this a "traditional American Christmas". Well, I just wasn't in the mood this year, for lots of reasons.

And she was ultra-high maintenance as well. My gosh. I adore my boy, and I'm sure she's a nice girl under less stressful circumstances. But - the juxtaposition of providing all the old habitual things for the boy - his preferences in boxed cereals, vehicles to drive, hours to be awake - and dealing with real life, with another person along for the ride, was a bit much.

And the "Mom, do you have this that I can borrow? How about you cook this tomorrow night? Where has this or that gone? How come you don't do this anymore? Why won't the cat sleep with me?"

Yep, I love him, and I hate to say it, but it was nice to see him go back to his adult life.

[tinkerbell41]

22. I'm dying from laughter.

I too have to make sure I have all the grocery items she prefers. What a pain!
I get the Christmas thing too. I would have been the same way.It turns everything upside down for a few days.
I just returned her to her dorm tonight, so I am much less stressed.

[rainbow4321]

23. LOL..you know things are messed up when the animal sleeping

arrangements are "a problem" for the visiting offspring...I speak from experience because normally our dog sleeps with my youngest daughter and I keep the cat all night since it's litter box/food are in my walkin closet

Except when my oldest comes to visit (see my other post in this thread)...which is right now.

Visiting oldest sleeps in my youngest's room when she is here and decides there is not enough room for the dog in the room/bed so I end up with dog...a dog who is very much confused and stressed because she has been kicked out of the bedroom that she is used to sleeping in.

Meanwhile, the oldest wants the cat to sleep with her in that bedroom since it is "her"
cat. She had the cat while she was in college but once she graduated and moved back East, she asked me to keep the cat for "a little bit". That was 2 years ago.

My youngest is like "hell, no, the cat is not sleeping in my room with us, I hate the cat and her accessories". Oldest is bummed because the cat is banned from that bedroom at night but she is more than happy to banish the dog who routinely sleeps in that room with my youngest every single night.

Even IF the cat does get to stay in there, she is crying and scratching at the bedroom door because SHE knows that she is in the "wrong" bedroom.

So when the oldest's visit home is finally over, the stressed, confused animals get to go back to their respective night time sleeping areas.

So now I just keep the cat AND the dog with me at night while she is here.

[tigereye]

25. "why won't the cat sleep with me?"

:rofl: I'm suddenly thinking back to when I used to go home from college...

[madmom]

26. This thread makes me think....

someone has been peeking in my windows, LOL :wow: