I am the youngest child in my immediate family; my brother is 30, my sister is 24, and I am 21. Being the youngest, I have watched how much my parents have sacrificed to send all three of us to college. They made a deal with each of us: We will take care of your undergraduate degree, but anything after that is your responsibility. Great deal, considering many parents cannot afford or choose not to pay for any of their children’s higher education. If your parents (or anyone) are helping you through college in any way—paying tuition, paying rent, buying groceries, sending care packages, reading your papers, anything—go thank them for everything they have done. Right now.
My brother went to college when I was too young to understand how much my parents did to help him, but I was in high school by the time my sister left. I watched as my parents carefully planned out how they were going to put three children through college for 12 straight years…12 years! I was very mindful about the things my parents were giving up to help us — so much money, countless travel opportunities, a nicer car/house/whatever, etc. I can’t imagine being as selfless as these two people, and I’m sure many of you feel the same.
Although many of us have jobs on campus and disgustingly large amounts of loans, (a discussion I will leave for another time) it is still difficult to support ourselves when we move off campus. I know I can barely buy groceries and gas for my car even with my monthly paychecks, let alone pay rent and try to chip away at the interest building on loans. Whether we are paying our own way or if our parents are helping us out, most of the people I know at Pitt are painfully aware of how much this is costing.
I never truly realized how lucky I was to have the parents I do have until I got to college. It makes me terribly sad to watch the way some kids treat their parents. If I spoke to my parents the way one of my roommates did freshman year, they would sew my mouth shut. (Weren’t y’all taught any respect?) Even if your parents are unable to support you in college, they still deserve your thanks and respect because they are your parents.
When I got to college, I thought, “Now I am free! I’m going to get a job and I won’t need my parents and I’ll never go home and I’ll be a real adult!” NOPE. First, I couldn’t find a job that wouldn’t interfere with my studies. (School comes first, y’all!) Then I couldn’t find a job at all. Second, I only stopped calling my parents for, like, a week. I couldn’t survive without them! I refused to go home because I strongly disliked my hometown, but I made my parents visit twice a month. Don’t they understand I’m still a child? I can’t live on my own like this, eating Market food twice a day and inhaling rice cakes for every other snack and meal. I was pathetic. The only thing that eventually lured me home was the thought of Thanksgiving, when I could eat real food and see my cat and tell her all the horrible things about life without my parents.
If freshman year wasn’t bad enough, sophomore year was worse. I moved to a one-bedroom apartment off-campus to reclaim this idea that I was becoming an adult. Little did I know how devastatingly wrong I was. I brought my car to Pittsburgh, bought a residential parking permit, and attempted to live on my own. The only problem was that I forgot that I have separation anxiety and I’m unable to be alone at night, because I constantly think someone is going to break into my apartment and kidnap me and eat all my food. I forced my boyfriend to stay over most nights and talked to my sister or parents on the phone for hours the rest of the nights. This got to be so bad that I started going home on weekends with the pretense of “doing my laundry” so I could eat real food and clean myself up a bit. I ended up paying about $700 in parking tickets, got my electric turned off because I forgot that I was somehow not receiving any bills, gained and lost 20 pounds because buying groceries was so damn expensive, and became more attached to my parents than I had ever been before. I know—I’m pathetic.
So instead of being a pretentious idiot like me, thank your parents and admit to yourself how much you still need them. They like that you need them and they want to help you. Try being completely independent for a while and watch how quickly that fails. If it doesn’t and you seamlessly become a perfect adult, then I commend you and I would like to know your secrets. But if that doesn’t happen and you go running back to mommy and daddy like I did, just know that it isn’t a failure and you’ll get there someday. At least I hope so.