I think back to my original college freshman orientation. It was literally "no parents allowed." You stayed in some crappy, tiny dorm room with some other incoming freshman as your roommate. Some over-protective parents would get motel rooms (there were no hotels in college towns back then), to hover over their kids, but I remember them being turned away from the freshman orientation session and even the course registration stuff with the professors who served to help students build their schedules. There were no "family days" or "family weekends" that I recall. If you wanted your family to come visit you during a fall football weekend, you just arranged that on your own, usually during homecoming or some patsy game where your parents could get tickets cheap. Honestly the first time my dad stepped foot on my campus was for my graduation. My brother found a mobile home that he lived in then I lived in. I had friends who went and found their own apartments.
Once my brother moved on, I had to find a roommate to defray the costs of the mobile home, and I did that more than once. But we were such a high-trust society it was pretty easy. To my knowledge there was no contract.
I remember my best friend told me his parents were coming into town, and I asked what for? He said "My older brother is graduating." Parents just didn't come and visit. I had a friend who went to the Naval Academy. His parents dropped him off and didn't see him again until Christmas. Now I see parents of kids in the service academies and they have been back two or three times since dropping their kids off.
Why? What is the difference? The difference is this. For my generation, adulthood started at your 18th birthday, or graduating high school, or being dropped off at college. At some point after that, it got moved to graduating college, or more likely, starting your first job, or even something later. I mean, my generation would graduate college, interview, get a job, move to a new town, find an apartment, and start life, with maybe the parents helping them physically move. Almost everyone operated this way. Even without an internet. You went to the new town, stayed in a motel, went and got one of those "Apartment finder" publications, found a potential apartment complex within your budget, went to a pay phone, called them, and made an appointment. You brought your offer letter with you. Before that you went into a local bank and set up an account.
It is weird. When I completed college I had set up my own bank accounts, had transferred my car insurance to my name, sold that mobile home (of course my dad owned it so he had to be involved), etc. And we did this over the phone (there was no Internet).
So when I see people like Jonathan Haidt push for early childhood independence, to include pushing a 7 or 8 year old (or even younger) to go into a fast foot restaurant and order takeout food and pay for it, while mom waits outside in the car, I agree with it. I took my 10 year old to a toy convention today, and watched as more than one vendor gave him lessons in how to bargain. I used to hold some disrespect for the generation that followed mine, but as I have gotten to know more and more early Millennials, (the "Oregon Trail" micro-generation), I have found many of them are more like my generation, who preceded them by, in some cases, 15 years.
We must instill independence into our kids. They are smarter than us, and more capable than us.
No comments:
Post a Comment