Like a number of other Dartmouth students, I spent Sophomore Family Weekend without my parents.
My story is not tragic &emdash; my parents had been here a week earlier to collect my brother from tennis camp and we'd decided there was no reason for them to make the five hour trip again. I didn't suffer any bouts of homesickness and although a free meal would have been nice, it certainly wasn't necessary.
Oddly, though, I didn't mind my new-found orphan status. My parents had always come to every parent-child event in my life. They sat through my dreadful choral recitals. They cheered at the appropriate times during my few victorious high school tennis matches. They never missed an open house. Now, I figured, was their time to relax.
This attitude carried me through until Friday, when everybody else's parents descended on Hanover.
I spotted parents in my psychology class, in the Collis Center and on the Green. I watched as my roommate showed her parents some of the paintings she'd done in her art class. I saw a son receiving tennis instructions from his dad and heard a daughter seeking her mother's approval of her new boyfriend.
Suddenly, my friends were no longer just the men and women that I'd known for two years. They were somebody's children.
Sophomore year is a strange time for parent-child relationships. We students have left behind the awkwardness and insecurities of freshman year. We are gradually gaining independence and planning our careers. As many of my classmates have noted, the promise of the "real world" lurks on the not-so-distant horizon.
Our parents are conspicuously absent from these scenes. My upcoming leave term may be the last time I ever live with my mother and father. The futures that we are so eagerly planning don't include our parents.
Yet we still invite our parents into our world. We want them to meet our friends, to see our rooms and to visit our classes. After watching everyone this weekend, I don't sense that we are completely ready to leave our parents behind. We don't necessarily need their permission or approval anymore, but I think we still want it.
I am not sorry my own parents weren't here for this weekend. In the absence of a free dinner, I think I learned a lot. I saw how having parents here simultaneously emphasized our maturity and reminded us of our youth.
Standing before our parents, we can be the accomplished adults that we so long to be. They are proud of our Dartmouth education and they eagerly await our future plans. At the same time, however, they can still make us feel young. My mother continues to remind me when I need a haircut.
This was the last "Parent's Weekend" of our Dartmouth careers. June, 1996, is the next time most of our parents will be here and that will be for our graduation.
After that, parent-child functions just don't happen. Right now, however, we aren't too old for our parents to come and take care of us. And although that time is quickly approaching, this weekend reminded me that it's not here yet.
