Anonymous wrote:As someone who works in a college, Ops wife's presentation is all too real.

We get many calls from parents asking us to check in on their child, help their child get up for school, ask for a missing person check because their child hasn't answered a text for 2 hours, and yes, we have had to remove parents from dorms as they were sleeping the room.

Many parents have always handed their child over to someone they feel is responsible for their child when they aren't present...to school, to camps, to an employer and this is the first time there is no handover to another person in charge. Parents call and ask who that person is that is now responsible for their child and when we tell them, the child is responsible for themselves, they get very upset.

There are many like Ops DW who do not cope well at all with the transition of their child (actually young adult) to college.

JC on a cross-- Are you kidding? WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE!!!

Anonymous wrote:Sounds like your DW is being facetious and you are being a drama queen about it. Also, sending someone off on a bus to college sounds like it would be fairly traumatic and unpleasant for the kid, IMO.

traumatic? Who exactly is the drama queen here? You consider this TRAUMATIC? My God, you need to get out more.

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Anonymous wrote:I took a bus to and from college. Not to move in and out though. But for holiday breaks and weekend trips home, yup. I went to VT in the late 90s. There is a bus route that goes from VT to the Vienna metro station. We would stop at either JMU or UVA on the way north.

It was super easy. And works well for a state school where a lot of people live in one area of the state. There was a similar bus that went to Richmond and then onto VA Beach.

Back in the 80's there was no bus like that. We had to either drive ourselves or find a carpool. A bus would have been soooo much easier (assuming the tickets are reasonably affordable).

Late 80's I took the bus home for breaks. I don't know why this is so mind-blowing to people. Do college students not ride busses any more?

Did this bus pick you up at the VT campus? I was there mid 80's and we all car pooled. If you couldn't get a ride with someone you knew, drivers looking for riders would hang signs up and you would call them and arrange a ride home that way.

One year my driver had her car taken away so I had no ride back to campus. That was fun. Definitely would have taken a bus if that had been a reasonably affordable option.

Yes it left from Squires! But the carpool option was probably still alive and well. Think it was like $25 for round trip. But gas was often about $1.25 a gallon back them (oooh the good old days!).

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Anonymous wrote:Pay the fifty dollars for your kid to move in early a few days. You all stay in a nearby (nice) hotel and let your wife help set up the dorm room but let your DD sleep in the dorm if she wants. Go out to lunch with your DD. This will set up an appropriate dynamic for visits in the future. You may not break that umbilical cord, but you can stretch it pretty thin.

+1

It will make the kid feel much happier too. Sounds like they are close. You are lucky to have such a great mom as a wife

Or maybe DD is desperate and ready to get away from an overbearing, overprotective mom and have space to breathe and be herself.

I am OP and yes, this is more the case. DD can't go about her daily business w/o Mom constantly checking in. She dies the same with me and it's annoying.

And us, when my brother went to West Point he was put on a bus and that was that!

Sounds like you have real contempt for her.

NP here. OP, I agree that you sound, if not contemptuous, certainly annoyed to the point you're not seeing that maybe your wife needs some help. If she is so anxious, or so controlling, that she truly is checking in on both DD and you throughout the day--she might benefit from therapy to figure out what in her past or her brain chemistry is making her this way. She's not functioning well as an adult, and you and DD end up feeling annoyed by her; her anxiety is distancing her own DD from her. Get her to accept professional help so she can have better relationships with you and DD. In other words: Can you step back from your annoyance objectively and see her as a person you love who possibly needs real help and who needs your compassion and frankness in order to get that help?

Haters will post that I'm letting her off the hook and she's just being a helicopter mom, etc. But the whole constant checking in thing over the years (not just re: college) looks a lot like a person who needs reassurance to an extreme degree that her family is OK and maybe one who defines herself as a mother so strongly that it's damaging to all of you.

Anonymous wrote:Our only child will be departing for college this Fall. She will start classes August 24. DW wakes up every morning crying "who's going to take care of my baby." She has suggested to DD that she will stay in her dorm room the first week of school to make sure DD "settles in." She says she'll put DD on friend finder so she knows where DD is at all times. I jokingly asked are you planning to go to class with her too?" She said yes. This unhealthy attitude of her mother is one reason DD is going away to college. She needs to get out. I think DW needs therapy. I would do what my parents did. They dropped me off at the firm and said bye. My brother they just put on a bus north and he didn't come until Christmas.

Op,

Have you posted before? Your story sounds familiar. I agree that your wife's attachment is too much and she should be letting go however, maybe if you showed some sympathy that would help? Have you suggested you take a trip after you drop your dd off at college to see how life can still be good? Tell her that she needs to let DD live her life and learn how to make mistakes? Therapy is good and if she doesn't go you should consider it for your DD so she knows how to set up boundaries.

Good luck!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I took a bus to and from college. Not to move in and out though. But for holiday breaks and weekend trips home, yup. I went to VT in the late 90s. There is a bus route that goes from VT to the Vienna metro station. We would stop at either JMU or UVA on the way north.

It was super easy. And works well for a state school where a lot of people live in one area of the state. There was a similar bus that went to Richmond and then onto VA Beach.

Back in the 80's there was no bus like that. We had to either drive ourselves or find a carpool. A bus would have been soooo much easier (assuming the tickets are reasonably affordable).

Late 80's I took the bus home for breaks. I don't know why this is so mind-blowing to people. Do college students not ride busses any more?

Did this bus pick you up at the VT campus? I was there mid 80's and we all car pooled. If you couldn't get a ride with someone you knew, drivers looking for riders would hang signs up and you would call them and arrange a ride home that way.

One year my driver had her car taken away so I had no ride back to campus. That was fun. Definitely would have taken a bus if that had been a reasonably affordable option.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I took a bus to and from college. Not to move in and out though. But for holiday breaks and weekend trips home, yup. I went to VT in the late 90s. There is a bus route that goes from VT to the Vienna metro station. We would stop at either JMU or UVA on the way north.

It was super easy. And works well for a state school where a lot of people live in one area of the state. There was a similar bus that went to Richmond and then onto VA Beach.

Back in the 80's there was no bus like that. We had to either drive ourselves or find a carpool. A bus would have been soooo much easier (assuming the tickets are reasonably affordable).

Late 80's I took the bus home for breaks. I don't know why this is so mind-blowing to people. Do college students not ride busses any more?

Yes, but not for the first move in if anybody can help it! In the 80s yes there were buses and trains and sometimes it was easier than other times. But still, the first time away to college -- the VERY FIRST TIME -- I have a hard time believing that MOST parents wouldn't do their best to get to the college with their child. Really.

In the 80s I carpooled with anybody and everybody going from X to Z then took the train from there. It worked. But move in and move out day ... parents.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I took a bus to and from college. Not to move in and out though. But for holiday breaks and weekend trips home, yup. I went to VT in the late 90s. There is a bus route that goes from VT to the Vienna metro station. We would stop at either JMU or UVA on the way north.

It was super easy. And works well for a state school where a lot of people live in one area of the state. There was a similar bus that went to Richmond and then onto VA Beach.

Back in the 80's there was no bus like that. We had to either drive ourselves or find a carpool. A bus would have been soooo much easier (assuming the tickets are reasonably affordable).

Late 80's I took the bus home for breaks. I don't know why this is so mind-blowing to people. Do college students not ride busses any more?

Anonymous wrote:I took a bus to and from college. Not to move in and out though. But for holiday breaks and weekend trips home, yup. I went to VT in the late 90s. There is a bus route that goes from VT to the Vienna metro station. We would stop at either JMU or UVA on the way north.

It was super easy. And works well for a state school where a lot of people live in one area of the state. There was a similar bus that went to Richmond and then onto VA Beach.

Back in the 80's there was no bus like that. We had to either drive ourselves or find a carpool. A bus would have been soooo much easier (assuming the tickets are reasonably affordable).

^I'm sure that would go over real well, lol.

I took a bus to and from college. Not to move in and out though. But for holiday breaks and weekend trips home, yup. I went to VT in the late 90s. There is a bus route that goes from VT to the Vienna metro station. We would stop at either JMU or UVA on the way north.

It was super easy. And works well for a state school where a lot of people live in one area of the state. There was a similar bus that went to Richmond and then onto VA Beach.

OP: too bad your DD isn't joining the Marine Corps. Your DW could move her into Parris Island and stay in the barracks the first week to make sure the drill instructor isn't too mean to your DD.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Pay the fifty dollars for your kid to move in early a few days. You all stay in a nearby (nice) hotel and let your wife help set up the dorm room but let your DD sleep in the dorm if she wants. Go out to lunch with your DD. This will set up an appropriate dynamic for visits in the future. You may not break that umbilical cord, but you can stretch it pretty thin.

+1

It will make the kid feel much happier too. Sounds like they are close. You are lucky to have such a great mom as a wife

Or maybe DD is desperate and ready to get away from an overbearing, overprotective mom and have space to breathe and be herself.

I am OP and yes, this is more the case. DD can't go about her daily business w/o Mom constantly checking in. She dies the same with me and it's annoying.

And us, when my brother went to West Point he was put on a bus and that was that!

O.k. with a military school I can see that. But an average state school? No way. You either bring your stuff with you or you do without - no sheets, no towels, no clothes, no nothing.

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Anonymous wrote:Sounds like your DW is being facetious and you are being a drama queen about it. Also, sending someone off on a bus to college sounds like it would be fairly traumatic and unpleasant for the kid, IMO.

Huh? That's what many parents did back in the day (like 15 years ago).

Huh. When I went to college 10 years ago I'm sure glad my parents didn't shove me on a Greyhound. I'm glad they helped me move in, which is what the vast majority of parents do.

How the heck are you going to send a kid to college on a bus? All that stuff that you have to bring with you to set up your room....good grief. Can you imagine traveling with all of that on a danged bus? Sheets, towels, blanket, a year's worth of clothes/shoes, coat, jacket, toiletries, basic school supplies....and that's just the bare minimum.

I hate to tell you this but there are a lot of kids that don't come from families that can afford to take a week off to move their kids into college. I went to Univ. of Michigan in the 80s and remember some rich kids who arrived with families, furniture, cars and wardrobes and other (less wealthy) kids who came alone on a bus with the bare essentials. They all survived.

This ain't the 80s anymore, dude. BTW, what "bus" even goes directly to a school? I mean, how far are we talking? Is this a cross country bus or a city bus...

I went to a state school back in the 80's. No one. And I mean NO ONE showed up with just a duffel bag and a comb....and on a bus no less. Even poor people wear clothes, bring sheets, towels, school supplies and a computer if their degree requires it. Dorm rooms tend to be tiny so even the wealthy kids were limited as to what they could bring. I don't recall ever seeing a kid bring a wardrobe into their dorm room (where would they put it??).

I am also fascinated by the idea of these buses that are apparently crossing the country and depositing people at their college. Where I went to college, which was a pretty cushy private school, we had one dumpy bus that ran only during limited business hours and took you in a loop about a mile away, to public transit, and left. How awesome would it have been if there was some kind of magical schoolbus stopping state to state and picking up kids, dorm equipment in tow, and depositing them at their university? Sign me the hell up.

Heck, yeah. Especially for holiday breaks. Just let bus service transport their azzes to/from school.

Does your DW work?