After spending the year with complete independence being thrust back under the rough of your parents can be rough. You are used to having complete freedom at all hours of the day. You have forgotten all the rules and curfews your parents used to have. Now being back you suddenly feel like you must abide by those rules. As summer begins you couldn’t be more excited to see all your friends and continue living your life, but you forgot all the rules of the home.

The curfew

There is an unspoken curfew. The parents might not tell you to be home by a certain hour but you sure feel the judgmental glances the next morning when you have been out until 3am.

The questions

Its a parental habit, they want to know where you are going. Who you are going to be with. What time you will be back. It’s like its ingrained in their brains. You aren’t use to having to answer all these questions to just go get ice cream.

The judgment

If you come home stumbling, the judgement is real. They sit there wanting to know every detail. You immediately miss the days you could stumble back into your dorm room, your roommate would be asleep or still out, and you could immediately crawl into bed, no questions asked.

The food

After eating when you want and what you want, suddenly there are planned feeding times. What is this? The dining hall even had a rotating feeding schedule and now you have to eat at only select times. There aren’t options.

The family time

You’ve missed your family, but after seeing them for a week straight you are ready to go back to face timing them from a distance. They will always be your number one fans, but they constantly want to hang out and you want to be with friends. You feel bad for breaking their hearts and feel obligated to hang out with them.

The errand running

Suddenly your mom realizes that you are able to go to the grocery store for her, pick up the dry cleaning, and the list goes on and on. You are her personal assistant and you aren’t used to having to do all these chores for someone. You used to have complete freedom and you were able to do whatever you what.

As you sit and try to enjoy your summer the independence you once felt in college quickly disappears. What it is replaced with is a sense of confusion. Why did I used to live this way? Was my life in high school always this controlled by my parents? Why were curfews invited? Please don’t judge me when I come home at my normal college curfew of 3am… Then you realize that the reason that all this happens is because somewhere under all of the rules and curfews is the love. Your parents just love you and they only ask you a ridiculous amount of questions because they want to know about your life. They want to know what you are up to and want to see you safe. Their judgmental face is, in fact, a face of I’m glad you are home. They are just happy to have you under their rough again because they don’t know how many more times they will get before you decide to move away for good or get married. You are their baby and always will be their baby.