My sister and I are only one and a half years apart. When she went to college, I went right after her and we ended up at College of Charleston, which happened to be about 30 min. away from where our parents lived. Our mother, who had taken college courses before but never completed a degree, decided to enroll at CofC.
I know what you might be thinking—this story sounds like some sort of tired, cliché, B-rated movie where an older person enrolls at a college or high school, and a bunch of silly little shenanigans ensue (all of which are made even “funnier” by the fact that the older person has kids who go to the same school). Right?
Well, there were shenanigans, but they weren’t the “my mom is cooler than me” or “I hope no one finds out I’m her kid” type of shenanigans. They were more like “my mom driving through campus and stomping the gas to run over a girl who was mean to me” and “my mom making a b-line for a teacher that had threatened my sister” and even “a male professor introducing my mom as Jenna Jameson when her name is actually Jenna Johnson” shenanigans. I don’t think our professor ever fully recovered from introducing her as a famous porn star. If you’re thinking, “Well, the names are similar,” I’ll agree—but my mom and Jameson share more than just a first name. They also both have huge breasts. So, yeah, my sister and I spent an entire semester staring at someone who we knew had checked out our mom. I don’t know if I’ll ever experience a more uncomfortable situation (not counting all of those times my mom met my male friends and they, at some point, turned to me to say, “Her boobs are huge! What happened to you?”)
When my mom expressed a desire to come to College of Charleston, my sister and I didn’t resist. We didn’t really care. My sister lived at home anyway, and it wasn’t like my mom was trying to move into the dorm and be my roommate. It was everything those crappy, B-rated movies aren’t. Except for, you know, the breasts and the few times my mom tried to run someone over.
We all ate lunch together. We walked places together. Sometimes we sat at the same table in the library and “studied” together, or we blew off class and did something way more fun. I was young and didn’t really want my mom following me like a shadow, but my friends liked hanging out with her. Sometimes I thought they liked her just to bug the crap out of me, but now I think she was filling some sort of void for them. A lot of my friends were 18 or 19, far away from home and on their own for the first time. They missed their parents or just didn’t have a good relationship with them, and I think a lot of them liked having that older motherly figure in their circle. You know how there’s always that one friend who’s the “mom” of the group? My mom was that “mom” because she was actually a mom.
I know that some kids—like my sister’s friends—went to her to ask for advice about school-related problems or to tell her about their negative experiences with professors. Professors who bully students exist more than people think and these professors tend to work only with freshmen or sophomores, who usually feel like the only solution is to drop the class or fail it. Remember my mom making a b-line for that teacher? Well, one way to get a nasty teacher off of your back is to sic your mother on them. It's a million times more entertaining when that teacher has no clue that your mom goes to the same school.
If you're wondering what class I took with my mom, it was a Classics course about Ancient Greek Medicine. It was required for my major, and my mom was taking it because she was -- and still is -- interested in medicine (she later went to MUSC and is now a resident at a hospital in Virginia, proving that idiot kids come along only to delay your dreams, not permanently keep you from them).
Aside from her consistently making better grades than me, and she and the professor meeting with each other to discuss my bad grades, taking the course together wasn’t as exciting as it probably sounds. If I missed class, my mom would be annoyed and ask why I wasn’t there. If I was late to class, the professor would just look to my mother. I’m pretty sure they had learned to communicate in Morse Code.
I walk into class late. The professor blinks at my mom, “Yell at her later, please?” and my mom blinks back, “Oh, I was going to savagely beat her with our textbook, but sure, yeah, I can yell at her instead.” I imagine the professor later wishing that she had taken my mother up on that savage beating. Who knows?
I remember bringing a cupcake to class once (one of those ridiculously huge ones from Caviar and Bananas). I was eating it and making a mess because the frosting was taller than the cupcake itself. It was all over my hands, the desk, my notes and probably the floor. Halfway through the professor’s lecture, my mom pulled out a handkerchief from her bag and tried to surreptitiously wipe my hands.
It didn’t matter how sly she was trying to be. When you and your mother are in the same class, you draw a lot of attention—especially when you have the same face, same voice and sometimes the same clothes.
When I look back, though, I don’t think anyone was judging us. It was odd, but perhaps these kids were staring because they missed what they had left behind at home. Everyone leaves that figurative piece of themselves back home -- that piece that they’re dying to get away from -- only to realize later that not having it around isn’t as freeing or as wonderful as they had once anticipated. Maybe we weren’t so much this hilarious, ridiculous spectacle, but more of a reminder that no matter how old you get or how far away you are, there’s still someone waiting for you, some wonderful person who will always be present to kiss you goodnight, to love you unconditionally and to stealthily wipe frosting off your small hands in front of your peers.
