RE: The Newly Departed thread: announcements
August 12, 2015 at 3:56 am
(This post was last modified: August 12, 2015 at 4:27 am by Alex K.)
(August 11, 2015 at 8:59 pm)Jenny A Wrote:(August 11, 2015 at 8:53 pm)Alex K Wrote: Dropping the child off at college, such a quintessentially American moment!
Have fun!
Don't parents of other nations do it? Or do you just put them on a train? Or what?
It's a rite of passage for the parent as much as the child.
I understand, and don't think that I find it ridiculous. I find it lovely! I personally wasn't put anywhere by my parents, I loaded the car with my girlfriend and off we went. Uni was 200 mi away. I think that we tended to be older when we went off to uni than college freshmen because of 13 year school and, for guys, mandatory military or alt service --- but my impression generally is that we're slightly more independent on average at that stage in our lives, which American youth quickly catch up in the first years of college (and if they don't go, ideally by other means). College freshmen are much more pampered on average(on paper) than German first semesters - at my uni in the US , you weren't even allowed to cook for yourself in the undergrad dorms! Unthinkable. And of course we can all legally buy beer here by the time we reach 10th grade, so the novelty of being away from your parents loses that sort of excitement as well. Still, whether these are perceived or actual differences, dropping your kids off at college simply is a cultural icon in the US, and while parents sometimes do it here it has not the same special significance - possibly as you say because distances tend to be smaller especially compared to out-of-state.
The fool hath said in his heart, There is a God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good.
Psalm 14, KJV revised edition