Article
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Give Me a Break
Your first visit home can be a tough adjustment—for you and your family.

By Abby MCCartney
Special to the Classroom Edition

The first semester of college is a time of immense freedom and excitement—your first opportunity to be a grown-up and live completely on your own! And yet, oddly, by the time November rolls around, the thing you want to do more than anything else in the world is go back home.

When Thanksgiving Break finally came, I was as excited about seeing my parents as they were about seeing me. I couldn’t wait to visit my high school, catch up with my old friends, and play with my dog.

But my first few visits home turned out to be a minefield of fights with my parents, awkward reunions with my friends, and worries about where I really belonged.

My mom sniped at me for sleeping till noon. My friends seemed sort of lame compared to my new friends in college. It was so strange to walk into the house I grew up in, feeling like a completely different person.

NOSY QUESTIONS

As a college student, you will get to make your own decisions about your schedule, when and what to eat, whom to hang out with, when to go out and come home, and when and how much to study. It’s amazing how easy it is to get used to that lifestyle.

So, it can be a tough adjustment to be back home for Thanksgiving Break with a curfew, a required family dinner, nosy questions about your friends and classes, and no one to talk to after 11 p.m. Without even realizing it, we run head-first into the turmoil of a changing relationship with our parents.

Nearly everyone has trouble navigating the boundaries of this new relationship. My friend Hannah, for example, was surprised to find that when she first returned home as a college student, her parents still wanted to enforce her old high-school curfew.

“But you don’t care if I get home at 4 a.m. when I’m at school,” she protested.

“Well, we don’t know to worry then,” they responded.

“That doesn’t make any sense!” she told them.

Maybe not, but the rule stood.

How you deal with it depends on what kind of parents you have.

If they’re the type who insist that you follow their rules whenever you’re under their roof, you’ll probably have to take a deep breath and respect their wishes for a week. Good luck, Hannah.

If they’re more open to negotiation, try explaining the reasons for your changes in behavior, before they lead to awkward silences or full-blown run-ins. The first few dozen times my mom called me lazy for sleeping in, I huffed and rolled my eyes. It turns out, though, that it works a lot better to tell her: “I like staying up late and sleeping in because I think more clearly at night than I do in the morning.”

Remember that your parents are adjusting, too. Not only do they have a new empty room in their house, they also have a kid becoming a different person, and they’re not around to watch the changes happen.

OLD FRIENDS

While you may be ready to duke it out with your parents, you’ll probably be overjoyed to reunite with your friends. It’s great fun to hear about the adventures everyone else is having at college. When I talked to my closest friends from high school, we all loved college, but for completely different reasons: Jennifer loved the three nights of parties every week; AJ loved the intellectual challenges; Rachel loved the social activism on her liberal campus.

Be prepared for your friends to have changed. After all, it wouldn’t be fair for you to change so much and while they stay exactly the same.

And whatever you do, don’t fall into the trap of comparing your high school friends to your new friends at college. I initially thought that my high school friends seemed totally uninteresting compared with my new college friends. But I forgot that knowing people for years always makes them less exciting than when you first meet.

So if your high school friends suddenly seem lame, don’t give up on them. I did that with a handful of close friends from high school, and I truly regret it.

Going home for the first time can be fraught with emotions and conflict, but don’t let it dishearten you. If the visit goes badly, at least you’ll return to school with a deeper appreciation of life on campus. And there are a couple of highlights you can count on: Your pets will be overjoyed to see you (and won’t mind that you’ve dyed your hair or changed your major), and for once, you won’t have to eat dinner off a tray!