Roomie Rumblings
Overheard on the ten-and-under supermarket checkout line yesterday:
Mom 1: “How’s Anastasia doing at college?”
Mom 2: (accompanied by ‘tween-aged daughter): “Terrific. Just went to see her for Parent’s Weekend. The roommate’s a little, huh, weird, you know, piercings and things…”
Thought bubble over head of Mom 3 (moi): “Gee, I wonder what the roomie’s mom is saying about her daughter?”
I mean really, isn’t that the whole point of living away from home: branching out and meeting all kinds of people, some your type and some not, but hey, what the heck? Broadening one’s horizons, and yadda yadda yaddah? What disturbed me most of all about this exchange is what Mom 2’s younger daughter was picking up about how we talk about people who are different than us.
Look, I’m not saying that the roomie wasn’t actually weird. Each fall you hear tons of stories about how someone’s precious progeny got “stuck” with someone way out of his or her comfort zone. Sometimes these random things work out better than others—not to mention that pre-selected (i.e. former friends) roommate situations combust all the time—and if the situation is really bad, kids do switch around.
I just think we should encourage our kids, whatever their age, to keep open minds. Learning to live with and be open to all different kinds of people might just be one of the best lessons taught on campus and beyond. Besides, today’s weird roomie might just turn out to be tomorrow’s quirky wunderkind. (I wonder what Bill Gates’s Freshman roommate’s mom thought about him?)
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So far, so good with roomies for my daughters away at college. Hard to believe that simply by chance, daughter number 2 ended up with a poetry-loving, liberal minded, belly dancer!
I tried to be open minded when going to college and that ended up with my "weird" roommate stealing my credit card and using it online.
Sometimes good things come in weird packages, and vice-versa. My roommates looked like completely normal, preppy girls, and they were catty and nasty.
Take it from someone who had a psycho roommate, that's one lesson I didn't need to learn. Having a drama queen roommate breaking up for four hours at a time (nightly) on the phone while you are trying to study is just one reason I'm all for single rooms. Life and my grades were so much better after I got a room of my own. For what college costs these days I don't think kids should be forced to live with strangers. It's weird when you really think about it.