Family Weekend.
A time for spending mom and dad’s money like it’s going out of style, for showing off all of the exciting things you do on campus and for finally figuring out where your drunkest friend gets it from.
As freshmen, you didn’t really know what to expect when the ‘rents came knocking on your door after five weeks of being apart. You couldn’t take them to a party, right? So, you spent their money at Bonagany and made them buy you a steak.
But as the years wore on, you may have found out that they have an iron liver as well. Or, at least being back on a college campus makes them think they do.
No matter how much they change over the years, each Family Weekend never fails to bring one resounding message to students everywhere: appreciate your parents.
Let’s face it.
When your parents show up, it’s easy to remember why you were so eager to get out of your house in those last weeks of summer–the remarks about your grades, the current state of your room or the interrogation about that Snake picture they saw on Facebook last week. Why did you want them here again?
Oh, that’s right, because they’re awesome.
The vast majority of students would not be here without some help from their old man and woman. They often dish out a couple thousand bones for things like residency and tuition, which they have been saving since before you were even born. Think about that…saving actual money for more than twenty years. When there are 50-cent Kamikazes at the Burton on Saturdays, I can’t save a dime.
Not only do they often foot the bill for your drunken debauchery, how about all those times they drove you to practice? Or helped you tie your shoelaces? Or taught you to ride a bike, brushed your teeth, changed your diapers and my personal favorite…willingly kept you around free of charge for this long?
Your parents sit through 18 years of your annoying daily habits. Crying and keeping them up, bailing you out of the principal’s office and then your teenage years when they should have thrown you out of the house for good. These people stayed by you even in your most awkward, acne-filled, metal-mouthed, pubescent stage of life.
To top that, after all the hell you put them through, most of them were actually sad when you left for college.
If that’s not love, then there is no such thing.
All of your life, these people have cleaned up your mess and paid for most of your stuff. While I like to tell mine that this comes in the “unwritten handbook” for having children, I know that they go above and beyond every single day for me, and I can’t put my appreciation for them into words.
But do I appreciate them a little more this week after they led my “Flip Cup” team to victory last Saturday?
Absolutely.
Emily Mulcahey is the Opinion Editor for the Bona Venture. Her email is
mulcahek12@bonaventure.edu
