When I first went off to college, I kind of…disappeared. I didn’t call home. I didn’t text. I was just living that college life, immersing myself in a new environment, making new friends, and trying to figure out my own path.
My parents reached out now and then, and we would briefly catch up, but I wasn’t super available. Looking back, I think I knew that the more I talked to them, the more homesick I would be and the more difficult an adjustment I’d find myself in living away from home for the first time.
My mom even told me that one night, as my parents were officially empty nesters, he turned to her and said, “I thought girls were supposed to call home,” which is a slight nod to how different (he thought) sons and daughters were when it comes to communication, noting that my brother, who went to college a few years before, never called home.
If you have a kid in college, you might be in that same boat as my parents, but one podcaster and author says that it’s actually totally healthy and normal to not talk that frequently to your college-aged kid.
“What’s an appropriate goal to shoot for in terms of asking for updates?” Kim Holderness, cohost of the Laugh Lines podcast, asked Gretchen Rubin during their chat about being empty nesters.
“ I think once a week is plenty,” Rubin responds, much to the shock and awe of Kim and her husband, Penn Holderness.
“I think if you have a communicative child, that’s wonderful,” Rubin says before noting that when you do talk to your kids away at school, be sure to keep positive and not fall into what Rubin calls “interviewing for pain.”
When you ask questions like, “Are you still fighting with your roommate all the time?” or “ is the food still bad?” or “ How’s that working out with all those girls sharing one bathroom?”, Rubin says this is asking for negative information, which can cause kids to feel unhappy as well as the parent.
“Sometimes, parents will say, ‘I’m so sad, but they’re so happy. They’re having so much fun.’ But even that, I think, is a lot of pressure for a child to feel like, ‘Well, I have to be happy. Parents always say like, ‘You’re only as happy as your least happy child, but I think for some children, ‘I’m only as happy as my least happy parent’. And managing the happiness of a parent is very, very hard. And I don’t think that most parents want our children to feel that responsibility.”
This hard-to-hear advice really caused parents to stop for a minute and wonder if a once-a-week check-in is realistic.
“Well, that made me pause… once a week?! I’m in trouble! Haha ❤️” one mom wrote.
“We used to occasionally ask our oldest for a ‘proof of life’ selfie,” another joked.
“Once a week? Absolutely not. I’m in my 40’s and I talk to my mom every day.😂” one noted.
One user agreed with Rubin and said, “When we were in college how often did we talk to parents 20 years ago?! Healthy kids fly the nest. Let them fly! They will call with exciting news and when in trouble.”
One mom shared, “Mom of recent college grad (son). He called us about once a week but he’d talk for an hour. He told me around his sophomore year that a lot of his friends didn’t want to tell their parents things, but because I didn’t ask for all the updates, he was more likely to share things with us. Yes, as parents it’s so hard to let them alone. But it’s worth it. Let them know you are there if they need you but let them ask for the help we’re used to giving without the ask.”
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