Picket Fence Post

Item #1: Golden Smiles

The U.S. Women’s Soccer team triumphantly won gold this week at the Beijing Olympics. Not only did they emerge victorious, the players — whose ranks included moms of young kiddos – inspired a whole new generation of soccer players, as you can see by the beautiful photo to the left. Makes ya want to cheer, “U-S-A!”

Item #2: Parents Followin’ College Kids

The New York Times ran a story that I found disturbing. It was about a mini “trend” among parents who, once their offspring goes away to college, decide to buy a second home in the town where their kid is attending school:

“. . . [S]ome parents are investing in college towns in an unexpected new way: they’re following their kids to college. From South Bend, Ind., to Oxford, Miss., from Hanover, N.H., to Knoxville, Tenn., they are buying second homes for themselves near campuses where their children are enrolled.

Many, like [M.J. and Jim Berrien], want front-row seats to watch their family athletes perform. Some seek a gathering place for football games or family holidays. Others long for a retreat with the amenities of a college town — and why not the one where they have children attending?”

One of the parents said she’d “been seduced” by a college town, while another said the college community would make “an ideal retirement place.” Some said that their kids (and their kids’ friends) are thrilled with having access to the home, free laundry plus home-cooked meals parents cook when they’re in town.

Helen E. Johnson, author of Don’t Tell Me What to Do, Just Send Money:The Essential Parenting Guide to the College Years, told the paper that she hopes parents are buying the homes for the “right reasons,” and urged them to seriously ponder the answers to these questions: “Would I like to be in this town even if my child wasn’t?” and “Does this have more to do with my need than theirs?” Then she threw in this killer line, “You might be making your child more fragile, not less.”

Another contrarian opinion was voiced by DenYelle Keynon of the University of South Dakota who has studied “the parent-student relationship” once the kid goes to college. She told the Times: “Research has found that the parent-child relationship grows better once the child has left the house. Parents should be careful not interrupt that process.”

Ouch.

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