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When it Comes to Parents, Sharing Isn’t Always Caring

Imagine if you will that you didn’t get back to your dorm room Friday night until sometime Saturday morning – the  night consisted of plenty of college-age antics including drinking, dancing, and basically having an amazing time. You are awoken by the sound of your cell phone ringing, and caller ID simply reads “Parental Unit” in big block letters. Do you:

A) Answer and ignore the fact that you’re hung over – what they don’t know won’t hurt them.
B) Answer and tell them about your evening – they’re paying for school, so they have a right to know.
C) Roll over and go back to sleep. It was a good night, why ruin the morning?

The glorious thing about college is that any of those answers is correct, except for one part – your parents don’t actually have a right to any knowledge about your life. As an 18+ year old student, you are entitled to your privacy, and nothing you do has to be shared with your parents. In fact, your parents are not even allowed to call your school and check in on your academic records.

But the harder question is what do you want to tell your parents about your life? Unless the people that raised you are as understanding as Lorelai in Gilmore Girls, most likely they aren’t going to be jumping with joy that you won flip cup last night or that you somehow managed to stumble home and not fall off the curb.

While you were in high school, you probably sat around the dinner table with Ma and Pop and chatted about the intricate details of your day.  Now, there’s almost always a phone wire between you and them, so you can actively filter information about you.

There are plenty of things you can share with your parents about college that are not related to your social life. Share with them struggles and triumphs in the classroom, or about your health. You can feel out the social situations best by seeing what your parents are willing to share with you about their adventures as a young adult. Use that as a platform for what you share with them. If mom is happy to talk about dating escapades and parties, she might think it’s funny to hear about the couch that got burned in the street last night. If your dad, on the other hand, keeps pretty mum and mumbles about studying a lot, he might not want to hear about the toga party last weekend.

Your parents are going to slowly realize you’re not their darling little child anymore, and that you have morphed into a grown-up being. They won’t stop giving you advice or judging your life choices, but you will have to start deciding what kind of grown-up relationship you want to have with them.