It's Labour Day weekend, and I'm bracing myself for all the back-to-school photos next week (and over the next few weeks) -- although I've already been seeing them from the States, where some schools start in mid/late August.
This is the weekend a lot of parents are moving their kids into university/college dorms and apartments, and I have a couple of friends who are sending kids off to university for the first time. For some, it's their last kid to leave home, and they're going to be empty nesters. Lots of angst. (Needless to say, I cannot relate.)
One such friend took both of her sons to their respective schools over the weekend -- the older one starting third year at one school, and his younger brother starting first year at another = leaving home, and leaving her and her husband empty nesters. I knew there would be photos -- but I was dumbfounded when she posted photos of a a beautiful silver bracelet her younger son bought her as a "thank you Mom" gift. (It actually spells out "THANK YOU MOM" in silver letters.) She also posted a photo of the necklace her older son bought her when HE first went off to university three years ago.
Is this a "thing" now?? (Or did she just raise very thoughtful boys?? lol) I've never heard of buying your mom a "thank you Mom" gift when you go off to school or leave home. Of course I never heard of "push presents" until a few years ago either.
Everything is a production and a photo op these days, it seems...! (And a marketing/sales opportunity for businesses too, of course...!)
(Here's another example: Older Nephew's Wife has been a bridesmaid for several friends in recent years, and apparently you don't just give gifts to your wedding party at/just before the wedding anymore, you also hold a party where you ASK them to be in your wedding party, and give them gifts then too!! At least, that seems to be the practice hereabouts.)
Have you ever heard of this?
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On a related note -- this article from The Atlantic (gift link) points to another back-to-school trend I've noticed in recent years and been hearing more about lately: elaborately (and sometimes even professionally)(?!!) decorated dorm rooms, mostly courtesy of the Bank of Mom & Dad.
I mean, seriously??
Here's how much times have changed (and why I simply cannot relate to all the back-to-school stuff, beyond not having a kid myself):
I arrived at university 46 years ago this weekend (Labour Day weekend, 1979). There were no pre-application/acceptance tours of campuses with parents in tow. (I can't think of anyone who would have been caught DEAD doing that with Mom & Dad in those days.) My high school arranged group tours of the two universities and one community college in the nearby city (an hour away) for any students interested in checking them out, and I did go on all of those, even though I was pretty sure which one I was going to attend.
Earlier that summer, one of my high school girlfriends and I took the bus into the city to register and sign up for our courses -- which, in those early days of computerization, involved filling in a form manually, then going around from one prof's office to another to get their signatures, and then standing in long lineups at the student union building with our chequebooks and forms to pay for it all).
We may have taken a stroll past the all-female dorm we'd applied to live in (one of several on campus), but never set foot inside before moving in. We'd requested each other as roommates on our applications, which you could do -- but it was not guaranteed our request would be accepted. In fact, I don't think I knew until I actually arrived on campus that weekend who my roommate would be. And -- unbeknown to me -- she had expressed preference on her residence application for a single room -- should she not get one, she'd take a cheaper double room with me. Preference for singles was given to returning students. Nevertheless, she beat the odds and got a single room. I think I knew this before we moved in, but I don't remember for sure.
My mother drove me into the city that day (I think it was on the long weekend Sunday, and I don't think my dad or my sister came). There was no specific set time (other than showing up on the weekend before classes began, during office hours); we just showed up. (I remember standing in a few lineups, but they weren't very long.) I think I had two suitcases with me containing mostly clothes and a few small items, maybe a few other things, and that was about it. I don't think I was too unusual in that respect (although of course my parents didn't live tht far away, so anything I'd forgotten or needed, I could get the next time I was home or they were in the city.)
We paid my fees at the administration office desk, got my keys and meal plan punch card for the dining hall, had my photo taken for the residence directory, and headed up to see my room. The "proctor" (residence assistant for my floor) came over to introduce herself and invite me to go with her and a couple of the other girls who had already moved in to party/social event that night. I don't remember Mom helping me unpack or lingering, or any tearful goodbyes. I was, of course, only an hour away from home, and those were very different times.
I knew my new roommate's name, but nothing else about her. When Mom & I arrived at the room on the third floor (it was a nine-storey building overlooking the river, built in the early 1960s), my roommate was not there, but her stuff was. I stared at the framed photos on the desk and other things, trying to guess from those clues what she might be like. She didn't actually arrive until Labour Day Monday. I'd been out and when I returned, she was sitting there, painting her nails, a polished, petite blond girl. I was a little taken aback at first -- but very happily, after some initial awkwardness, we soon got to know each other better, became fast friends, and we're still in touch, all these years later,
Like many dorms of the era, the rooms had cinderblock walls. There was one long shared built-in counter/desk, spanning the wall below the window, with a couple of drawers below on either side, and two bookshelves and two bulletin boards on either side of the window, two chairs, two beds and, on the walls opposite the desk/window, two small closets for our clothes, and a couple of drawers topped with a counter and mirror. The beds came with pillows, linens (changed weekly by maids; we had to strip the beds if we wanted the sheets washed, and make the beds up with the new sheets ourselves) and thin bedspreads. Some girls brought their own pillows and bedspreads/quilts from home, which I did, eventually (nothing new, a castoff from my sister's room at home).
There was a bathroom shared by the entire floor, with several (four, I think) toilet cubicles and sinks, which was often a gathering space at night as we washed our faces and brushed our teeth before going to bed. There was a shower room with several shower cubicles, and a couple of separate tub rooms each equipped with a bathtub and sink. A handful of large rooms or suites were reserved for people like the residence council president, the head resident (an administrative role), and some of the residents who had lived there the longest, had larger rooms/suites with private bathrooms. I got one of those rooms in my fourth and final year by virtue of my seniority -- a double room converted to a large single with a private bathroom (including tub/shower unit) -- and I must say it was nice. :) There were coin-operated washers and dryers in the basement where you could do laundry.
Our rooms had no phones: there was a payphone downstairs. There were phone jacks in each room, though, and we could (and did) go to the phone company office at the local mall (a short bus ride away), and arrange to rent one. (Most of us got the basic black, dial model, which was the cheapest option.) My roommate and I split the rental cost and each paid for our own long-distance calls. Long distance, of course, was expensive in those days. The weekends that I didn't go home -- and I didn't actually go home that often, especially after the first while, and then my parents moved further away, which reduced my incentive to visit too often -- I would call home on Sunday night to chat (which was the cheapest). We also bought a small wipe-off message board with an attached water-soluble marker. Just about everyone had one; that was how we left messages for our friends and neighbours, in those pre-computer & pre-cellphone days.
Over time, I brought more and more stuff from home. I think I already had an electric alarm clock-radio (with the numbers that flipped over -- pre-digital days!). I brought a desk lamp, and my portable typewriter, and a couple of favourite stuffed animals. We papered the walls with posters, bought at the campus bookstore and the nearby KMart (I particularly remember Peter Frampton and Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem from The Muppets over my bed, lol -- maybe because they're both visible in one of the few photos I took of my room that year -- see below).
There was a full-sized refrigerator in the floor lounge (also a kettle and toaster), but my new roommate brought a small kettle/hot pot, and I contributed a small bar-size refrigerator (thanks, Dad!), and we assembled a small collection of mugs, glasses, plates and cutlery (many -- ahem! -- pilfered from the cafeteria). The parents also provided a small (12") black-and-white TV. Using the "rabbit ears" antenna, I could pull in a few (about 4) local stations. When I was in third year, my parents gave me a stereo for Christmas, which I'd been begging for for YEARS -- a turntable, tuner/radio/cassette . (I promptly burst into tears.) I took it with me when I returned to school after the holidays, along with some of my LPs (and naturally I accumulated more over time). When I got a bigger room in third year, I made a low bookshelf out of a couple of boards and some bricks that a friend with a car helped me to buy at nearby lumber yard.
There was storage space in the basement where you could keep boxes and trunks and larger items (like mini-fridges) in the summertime. We'd leave a note in the elevator for Tom, the good-natured caretaker, asking him to "please come take my boxes from Room 324 down to storage, thanks!" and then the reverse in the fall -- "Hi Tom, could you please bring up the boxes for Lori Lastname to Room 742" -- and they would magically appear in your room when you got back from class later that day.
I lived in that dorm for all four years of undergrad, moving up to larger and larger single rooms -- and accumulating more and more stuff. ;) (Textbooks alone took up a few boxes.) As I said, I arrived that first fall (1979) with little more than two suitcases. When I moved out in April 1983, my dad had to borrow a friend's half-ton pickup truck, and we completely filled the back. We borrowed a trolley from Tom, and made several trips up and down in the elevator and out to the truck, as my floormates sat in the lounge and watched in amusement. When we brought out the last few boxes, they broke out into applause. (Smarta**es, lol.)
I cried as we drove away. It was the end of an era. That dorm was my home for four years-- especially once my parents moved away from the town where we'd lived for six years, and where I'd gone to high school. They were some of the best -- definitely the most fun -- years of my life, and I still think about it, and dream that I'm back there.
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I think I've posted this photo before?
My side of my first-year dorm room, with standard dorm bedspreads and furniture.
Dr. Teeth & the Electric Mayhem & Peter Frampton above the bed. :)
Fall 1979. |
