Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:After over a year on our incoming sophomore’s college parent FB page, we realized early on the usefulness of such pages. While it was helpful to find recommended hotels, restaurants and the many local parents willing to help our kid in a pinch until we might have needed to get there, we found most posts are those of lawn mowing parents looking to get every obstacle out of the way of their pure sugar spun adults.

Now we look on with amusement of those who share every pulled fire alarm to the parent who is taking every possible measurement of the sample dorm room to build headboards and desk cubbies which will end in the dumpster at the end of freshman year based on what we saw at move out.

Parents were shocked I tell you no service came in to clean weekly or so their kids laundry. My kid is no angel and learned from her experience and is far from perfect, but reading some of these parents I feel for their kids first time away.

One of my favorites was the parent asking if getting a Dyson Vacuum ($800+) was worth it for their snowflake! As if any college student actually uses a vacuum.

Funny. Both of my boys requested vacuums after they moved into the dorms. They aren't neat-niks either.

My friends with older kids shared the crazy from their kids’ college fb pages. The college my daughter attends had a fb page for parents and then shut it down. Parents started a new page and there are volunteer admins. I have to say, people are pretty chill. There was a whole lot of crazy during freshman year, but freshman year was fall 2020 so there were a lot of Covid policies that had everyone posting. It has calmed down immensely and a lot of info is helpful. Several people posted about graduation weekend events/scheduling/planning and I found it helpful to keep in mind for graduation when it happens.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can anyone explain why parents remain in the groups after their child has graduated?

When my kid started at FancypantsU, parents from the previous graduating class stuck around for a year to provide institutional memory/background, then left so the next batch of parents could talk about commencement, kids' first year after graduating and what might have been a good idea in college, etc. But my kid graduated this year, and we were told to scram. So scram I did!

The admin’s of ours daughter graduated in May and she won’t step down.

Anonymous wrote:Can anyone explain why parents remain in the groups after their child has graduated?

When my kid started at FancypantsU, parents from the previous graduating class stuck around for a year to provide institutional memory/background, then left so the next batch of parents could talk about commencement, kids' first year after graduating and what might have been a good idea in college, etc. But my kid graduated this year, and we were told to scram. So scram I did!

Today on my freshman's parent page a mom asked what staff member she (not her kid) needed to call about getting HS credit transferred.

Well, since I'm not on FB, I won't be able to ***create an entire thread on DCUM to complain about how parents complain about their college kid's life on Facebook***.

I mean seriously, do you guys hear yourselves? And OP, given the writing style, half of the responses to this thread are yours. Relax, for goodness' sakes.

The big conflagration now is room changes as they start to consolidate the empty spaces. The fact they have to walk up an extra flight of stairs has parents wanting to call the president of the Uni!

I’m not understanding why parents are getting involved searching for information about their kid’s roommates? I can kind of kind having your kid coordinate so you don’t being two or four of everything, but shouldn’t that be up to the kids?

I had one phone call with my roommate but didn’t chat much and then met on move in day.

Some are even trying to meet others from the area so they “know” someone/. I would have been mortified!

OMG, I’m so glad I found this as I feel the same way.

Today on our parents page, not by year, just school, a woman came on a poster about her friend’s daughter who was having roommate issues. I’m like stay out of the way. It is not your daughter, let either your friend or her daughter navigate it.

Last year one crazy mother came on to tell every parent a certain dorm was on FIRE. When it was just a smoke alarm set up by burning popcorn in the community kitchen. Of course other parents got panicked.

LOL at the "hiring a maid" story from above-- although I've seen similar parents on this very board asking about hiring a maid to clean their college student's dorm or apartment, so DCUM is not exempt from the kind of craziness that appears on college parent FB pages.

Anonymous wrote:The latest long thread is about hiring a maid service to preclean her son’s dorm before move in. “It has to be clean to MY standards” she shared. I just wonder if she is going to check weekly on how filthy her son’s room will become.

My son was a junior and moved into a university owned apartment in fall of 2020 (so during Covid.) I figured things might be a little dusty so when we helped him move in I brought a container of Clorox wipes, thinking I'd just quickly wipe most surfaces down. I was so wrong--it wasn't just "dusty" it was "grimy!" We ended up spending over two hours (son and husband in the living room kitchen, me in the bedroom/bathroom) and the ENTIRE container of wipes cleaning everything. It was really disgusting. I've never worked Clorox wipes so hard and after two hours my fingers were raw and numb from the chemicals and rubbing.

Two weeks later I moved our other son into a dorm room--this time I came prepared with REAL cleaning products, not just wipes---and it was IMMACULATE! I started wiping a few surfaces down with wipes and then realized there was no need, it was perfect!

Cleanliness standards vary so much in dorm/apartment move in.

I left the parents page when they were asking who wanted to start a parents of kids living at Dew Drop Inn Apartmenrs (not real name) or who wants to start a parents of XYZ fraternity or sorority.

We told our daughter our role has switched from guardian to advisor now. She will always be our child and we will rescue her anywhere, anytime, any place.

I also don’t get why any parent plus the admin would want to be a part of a page after their kids graduate. I can kind of get helping the newbies asking the same question we had freshman year, but we also know how to search and now just don’t care. That phase of life is over for us.

Anonymous wrote:The latest long thread is about hiring a maid service to preclean her son’s dorm before move in. “It has to be clean to MY standards” she shared. I just wonder if she is going to check weekly on how filthy her son’s room will become.

My DC just graduated. Lived in dorms fresh/soph years. I was there for move in freshman year. Then at move-out, I was in room for about 10 mins, just enough to help bring 2 loads down to car and transfer to storage for summer.
Soph move in I was in room for less than an hour--roommate had already moved in the day before and lofted my DC bed, so I put on sheets and helped with a few things then my DC said they were good and I left. Spring was covid, so did not return to campus until graduation May senior year. Never saw the inside of the house my kid lived in last 2 years---really had no desire to see the mess that it likely was. By time we arrived in town, they had moved out 90% of furniture and were starting the cleaning process. No desire to see that mess or be asked to help clean
(FYI--kids got their full deposit back, so it probably wasn't that bad relatively speaking).
My point is, it's the kids place, why the hell would I care what it's like. At my home, I require the kids to keep their rooms to a higher standard (no food left in room, clean up every 2 weeks so house cleaners can actually clean their rooms) but once on their own, it's their choice. That's similar to a thread I saw about "should I buy my DC a Dyson for their dorm room". Considering half of kids rarely vacuum, I'd say no. Buy a cheap one a nd leave it at that. But the responses from helicopters was amusing

The latest long thread is about hiring a maid service to preclean her son’s dorm before move in. “It has to be clean to MY standards” she shared. I just wonder if she is going to check weekly on how filthy her son’s room will become.

Anonymous wrote:We have a mom that reposts every disgusting photo that her daughter sends her. Picture of undercooked meat, dirty dorm bathrooms, hair in her salad, used condom on elevator, etc. When people start to complain about her posts, she says if my daughter has to see it, everyone has to see it.

Does her daughter ever photograph people laughing, flowers, a cute dog that wandered onto campus? It’s so sad that she sees only the bad and her mom does, too.

I saw all kinds of gross stuff. I never told my parents. Kids carry cameras everywhere now so they think everything has to be documented.