This weekend, the University will undergo an "invasion of the parents," also known as Family Weekend. For some -- mostly first years -- Family Weekend is a chance to show parents that yes, their tuition dollars are being put to good use. For others -- mostly fourth years -- it's a chance to, well ... wait, do any fourth years' parents actually still come for Family Weekend?
I get the feeling the answer is a resounding no. Granted, there may be some fourth years (present company included) whose parents come every year, but largely, the tradition seems limited to first and second years. Essentially, by the time fourth year rolls around, Family Weekend is decidedly not cool.
But why do parental visits to the University start to dwindle as the years go by? Is it a case of "been there, done that," or do we just get too old for parents?
It's interesting to think that what should be the simplest relationship we have in our lives usually turns out to be the most complex, tumultuous and dysfunctional. Without getting gratuitously sentimental about the nature of the parent-child relationship, suffice it to say there's this thing called unconditional love, it's mutual and it's the tie that binds -- simple in theory, yet remarkably complicated in reality.
The relationship undergoes a peculiar sort of evolution, with several distinct phases marked by varying degrees of parental neediness and rejection. In the preschool and kindergarten days, being abandoned by your parents at school is agonizing. You cling to your parents' legs and beg them not to go. Once they finally manage to escape from your death grip, you suffer through a few hours of coloring and napping, anxiously awaiting their return. To your kindergarten self, your parent or guardian is the knight in a shining minivan coming to rescue you from that hellish place known as school.
In elementary school, it is highly acceptable for parents to show their faces at school. In fact, you're considered the cool kid in class if your mom brings cupcakes for your birthday or your dad comes in for "Career Day." Hip, snack-bearing parents are a thing to be envied.
In junior high (or whatever you call the grades between elementary and high school) you gradually start to disassociate yourself from your parents, and those visits to school become an unwelcome embarrassment. All you want them to do is chauffeur you to the mall -- but really, you still need them more than you care to admit.
When you reach high school, the all-out rebellion begins. You know how it is. The Curfew Years -- they weren't that long ago. You remember the teenage angst, the parental resentment. Enough said.
Then you hit college, and the kindergarten cries of "No parents?! Wah-wah!" turn into cries of "No parents?! Woo-hoo!" You can hardly wait for the knights in the shining minivan to drive off into the distance.
In those first few months, you revel in your newfound independence. Wednesday becomes the new Friday, and there's no one there to tell you otherwise. But gradually, the novelty of the parents-free universe wears off, and a degree of homesickness inevitably sets in, so by the time Family Weekend comes, you welcome the familiar faces.
But why, as we ascend the undergraduate ladder, do the parental visits decline?
It seems to me that, instead of shunning Family Weekend as upperclassmen, perhaps we should see it as a chance to reconnect with our parents and show them what our lives have been like here the past few years. After all, like all good things, college must come to an end. The honeymoon will be over soon, and we'll be back on our parents' couch before we know it. Therefore, maybe it's time we welcomed our parents with open arms to our home here at the University since they'll eventually do the same for us.
So I say bring on the parents. Show them the sights. Go out to the good restaurants -- the expensive ones. Flaunt them unabashedly on the Corner. Buy them a commemorative orange t-shirt at the Bookstore or some other piece of U.Va. paraphernalia they don't already have. A little sucking up could go a long way.
Lauren's column runs bi-weekly on Thursdays. She can be reached at pappa@cavalierdaily.com.
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