The Lure of Comfort Food

When my college sophomore came home for Thanksgiving break last week, he wasn’t longing for my pumpkin pie.

The traditional Thanksgiving feast is not really to Jack’s liking. He managed to eat some turkey liberally doused with barbecue sauce, along with a smidgen of mashed potatoes and a spoonful or two of vegetables, but sweet potatoes were out. Nose up to the apple pie as well as the pumpkin pie.

Several hours later, when the guests had departed, he asked if he could have the Stouffer’s mac and cheese in the freezer.

That, you see, is one of his comfort foods. During the break last week, he also made stops at a couple of his favorite restaurants, indulging in ribs and chili cheese fries.

It’s not like I encourage this type of eating all the time. We have discussions about balance and choices and the need to broaden his culinary horizons. Jack has managed to convince me that he does eat fruit and vegetables on a regular basis.

But, for good and bad, food is an obsession during the college years.

With more dining options and the easy availability of mini refrigerators and microwaves in dorm rooms, the “freshman ten” weight gain has ballooned to the “freshman fifteen,” despite the boom in fancy fitness centers on campus. Parents receive emails from various companies encouraging them to order welcome snack baskets for the start of the school year, Halloween and Valentine’s treats and packs of assorted munchies for finals week.

And let’s face it, college parents can be shameless when it comes to using comfort food as a lure back to the nest. “I made your favorite (fill in the blank)” is one way of getting your kid to eat dinner with you, even if he does run off afterward.

 

All in the (Modern) Family, College Edition

The writers of Modern Family nailed it this season when Claire and Phil moved their oldest daughter, Haley, into her freshman college dorm. The show was funny and over-the-top (Phil dropping a big box of condoms in front of Haley’s new roommate and her father), but with an undercurrent of real emotion and a sweet, not sappy ending.

Claire’s expression of bewilderment and loss as they drive home and her emotional reaction when Haley calls to say thanks and “I love you guys” choked me up.

Even now, in the first semester of Jack’s sophomore year, I occasionally experience that feeling of loss even as I admire the confidence that allows him to keep loosening those apron strings.

Parents handle the transition to the college years in different ways and at different levels of emotional intensity. For Kathleen, a colleague who lives in Nashville, the separation from her freshman son this fall hasn’t been so difficult. “I am the kind of Mom who didn’t cry on the first day of kindergarten and, many years later, didn’t cry after dropping our only son off to college,” she explained.

She celebrates this next phase of his life and the opportunities he will have at college. But that doesn’t mean she doesn’t want to hear from him. Getting a reply to her text or email or a rare phone call from Joe is “a highlight of my day.” She also gets to read the entries he writes for a campus blog.

Kathleen and her son had a running joke throughout his high school years that he would let her be his Facebook friend once he started college. “True to his word, Joe ‘accepted’ me as his Facebook friend as we were on the highway headed home from college move-in day,” she told me. “I made the promise not to make a lot of comments on his page. We message each other privately. However, being connected on Facebook and Instagram means that I won’t be surprised this Thanksgiving when my freshman comes home with a full ‘Grizzly Adams’ beard. I’ve already seen it.”

My son still won’t accept me as his Facebook friend and he’s not interested in Skyping, but I agree with Kathleen that being digitally connected allows us to interact with kids away at college in ways our own parents never experienced.

On occasion, the ease of such connection makes any prolonged silence at the other end a little harder to bear. That was true for me as Jack started his sophomore year. He had less need to check in about things he was perfectly capable of handling himself and was his usual reticent self when describing his day-to-day life. But in the past month, he’s opened up a bit more, which makes me happy.

Even Kathleen, whose son seems willing to share his thoughts and feelings, has to confess that most of the communication in her family is initiated by Mom and Dad.

Those of us with sons can relate.

Being college parents has actually broadened their social life. They’ve become involved with Nashville’s “extremely active” Ohio State alumni chapter and watch football games at a local hotel with 100 or so of their “new friends.”

“Joining the alumni group on football days has been fun for us to stay connected to the campus,” she said. “We cheer with the alumni while Joe cheers in the stadium.”
 

 

Riding Out the Storm: At Home and in the Dorm

When I prepared myself for the emotional separation after my son went off to college, dealing with hurricanes was not part of the checklist.

And then I was introduced to Irene and Sandy.

The good news is that we all stayed safe during those hurricanes, at home and in the dorm. But, let’s face it, if you’re both going to be within the range of a potential major disaster, most parents would prefer to have their kids next to them. Or at least in the same house.

Last year, as Irene’s wind and rain spread into upstate New York, it had more of an impact on Jack’s school, which suffered some significant flooding and lost power for several days. Enough to worry a parent. Luckily, he still was able to communicate with us and I scoured the internet for updates on what was happening in the area. We knew the dorms were dry and food service was available. Eventually, campus life got back to normal.

This week, the school was on alert again. Classes were cancelled for a day and a half and food stockpiled in residence halls as a precaution, but there was no power loss. Instead, Sandy transfixed them from afar as the hurricane tore up the eastern shoreline and shut down New York City.

We kept in touch via text during the storm, but it must have seemed surreal to Jack, as it almost did to me, to see such havoc occurring in familiar places. He probably was more worried about us than we were about him (perhaps this is wishful thinking).

We are deeply saddened by the events of this week, by the loss of life and homes and the destruction of places like beaches and amusement parks that bring joy to everyone. I just hope, for the sake of all, that hurricanes stop making their annual visit here.