Comments on: Parents and college freshmen: the long goodbye http://neoneocon.com/2010/08/25/parents-and-college-freshmen-the-long-goodbye/ Thu, 23 May 2013 16:23:15 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.5 By: Peter http://neoneocon.com/2010/08/25/parents-and-college-freshmen-the-long-goodbye/#comment-185930 Peter Mon, 13 Sep 2010 14:40:07 +0000 http://neoneocon.com/2010/08/25/parents-and-college-freshmen-the-long-goodbye/#comment-185930 When it’s time for my two-year-old to head off to college, I suspect I’ll be one of those parents who wants to hang around as long as possible. Not out of over-protectiveness, but because I’ll secretly hope that if I stick around long enough, they’ll let me stay and *I* can go to college again…

]]> By: neo-neocon http://neoneocon.com/2010/08/25/parents-and-college-freshmen-the-long-goodbye/#comment-182220 neo-neocon Fri, 27 Aug 2010 20:08:25 +0000 http://neoneocon.com/2010/08/25/parents-and-college-freshmen-the-long-goodbye/#comment-182220 Sergey: yes, I wasn’t meaning to say that America was the only individualistic country. I agree that Britain has a somewhat similar tradition, although I think this country is even more so (except for the schools; Britain is definitely more extreme on the schools, but I believe that is pretty much limited to the upper classes, if I’m not mistaken).

But I disagree with your assertion that individualism was not a factor in emigration here. Yes, religious freedom, economic opportunity, all were part of the reasons for coming here. But, to clarify, the more individualistic people were the ones who made the decision to cut bait and come here, and leave their families behind. It was a selection process.

]]> By: Sergey http://neoneocon.com/2010/08/25/parents-and-college-freshmen-the-long-goodbye/#comment-182210 Sergey Fri, 27 Aug 2010 19:10:17 +0000 http://neoneocon.com/2010/08/25/parents-and-college-freshmen-the-long-goodbye/#comment-182210 Neo, I agree that this is cultural, but it seems you overestimate American exeptionalism. In England they do just the same, and were doing it long before Columbus. Public schools, boarding schools is a distinctive English tradition, and such institutions “launch” children not in 18, but in 11! Individualism is not a specifically American, but a general Anglo-Saxon trait. It is absent in Germany and Italy or in Mediterranian, where family ties are much more strong.
Most people who built America leaved their parent countries not because of their individualism, but because they fled religious or ethnic persecution, famine or extreme poverty. Pilgrims were not a bit individualists: the founded a communa of a very socialist nature. Every wave of immigration was caused by conditions very far from normal, and I see no reason to recreate this abnormality in a rich, affluent country. Except this “cultural” thing, of course: Anglo-Saxon obsession with extreme form of individualism.

]]> By: Sgt. Mom http://neoneocon.com/2010/08/25/parents-and-college-freshmen-the-long-goodbye/#comment-182171 Sgt. Mom Fri, 27 Aug 2010 13:14:36 +0000 http://neoneocon.com/2010/08/25/parents-and-college-freshmen-the-long-goodbye/#comment-182171 (blushing girlishly) Thanks, Charles and Guy – you are so gallant, the both of you!

]]> By: Justthisguy http://neoneocon.com/2010/08/25/parents-and-college-freshmen-the-long-goodbye/#comment-182107 Justthisguy Fri, 27 Aug 2010 06:35:10 +0000 http://neoneocon.com/2010/08/25/parents-and-college-freshmen-the-long-goodbye/#comment-182107 Sgt. Mom, please tell Corporal Blondie that I think y’all are both still hawt, and that she shouldn’t hunt me down and kill me.

]]> By: Vieux Charles http://neoneocon.com/2010/08/25/parents-and-college-freshmen-the-long-goodbye/#comment-182077 Vieux Charles Fri, 27 Aug 2010 03:51:33 +0000 http://neoneocon.com/2010/08/25/parents-and-college-freshmen-the-long-goodbye/#comment-182077 Sgt Mom,
;)

]]> By: Sgt. Mom http://neoneocon.com/2010/08/25/parents-and-college-freshmen-the-long-goodbye/#comment-182030 Sgt. Mom Fri, 27 Aug 2010 00:14:40 +0000 http://neoneocon.com/2010/08/25/parents-and-college-freshmen-the-long-goodbye/#comment-182030 My daughter enlisted in the USMC, at the age of 18 and went away to Basic Training the following September. I took her to the military in-processing center very early in the morning, watched her being sworn in – and then I went to work. When I got home, there was a message for me from her on the answering machine – she was about to board a flight to South Carolina with the other enlistees for that day. My mother was certain that I would be on the floor, howling with grief at walking into an empty house … but all I could think of was how short that 18 years had actually seemed – was that all there was to the heavy-duty, hands-on parental lifting? The only big task left to me now (theoretically) was maybe to organize her eventual wedding.

Oh, and she did eight years in the Marines, and came back home to live with me while going to college. I want to get myself one of those tee-shirts that says “It’s not an empty nest ’til all of their stuff is out of the garage.”

]]> By: Baklava http://neoneocon.com/2010/08/25/parents-and-college-freshmen-the-long-goodbye/#comment-181984 Baklava Thu, 26 Aug 2010 20:22:01 +0000 http://neoneocon.com/2010/08/25/parents-and-college-freshmen-the-long-goodbye/#comment-181984 worthwhile is the word of the day.

You have a purpose in my life :)

]]> By: neo-neocon http://neoneocon.com/2010/08/25/parents-and-college-freshmen-the-long-goodbye/#comment-181978 neo-neocon Thu, 26 Aug 2010 19:32:16 +0000 http://neoneocon.com/2010/08/25/parents-and-college-freshmen-the-long-goodbye/#comment-181978 Baklava: why, thanks so much.

That makes it all worthwhile (writing this blog, that is).

]]> By: neo-neocon http://neoneocon.com/2010/08/25/parents-and-college-freshmen-the-long-goodbye/#comment-181977 neo-neocon Thu, 26 Aug 2010 19:31:03 +0000 http://neoneocon.com/2010/08/25/parents-and-college-freshmen-the-long-goodbye/#comment-181977 Sergey: it’s definitely a cultural thing. American culture prides itself (or used to, anyway) on individualism. Just think—a great many people who founded this country were young people (teens, or people in their twenties) who left their home countries and their families behind, and crossed an ocean in a time when leaving meant they would almost certainly never see them again. Now, that’s striking out on your own!

Not that such an attitude doesn’t have consequences. It does.

]]>