For some odd reason, people never talk about the pressure to stay in touch with their parents once they get to college. However, the pressure that I’ve experienced hasn’t just come from my parents. Sometimes it’s from my peers. People seem to expect me to keep in constant contact with my family and if I don’t, I receive unwelcome judgment, reprimand and, most often, pity. The fact that this is the automatic response reveals strict and problematic standards for how we should communicate with our parents in college — but not everyone fits this standard. Contrary to popular belief, the amount that I talk to my family does not reflect a poor relationship with them.

I have a solid relationship with my parents. Granted, we have our differences and we go through rough patches, but we still really love one another. It was living separately from my family that actually helped me become better at communicating with them during the first few months of college. 

Before, even being in the same room as them was pretty uncomfortable because we couldn’t agree on anything, which tends to happen when you live in close proximity to other people. The distance has been good for all three of us. We now have a more adult relationship — we can have a meal together without any awkward silences or passive-aggressive comments. Seeing them now lacks the same tension — I appreciate them more when they’re around. 

To those with warm, fuzzy parent-child relationships, the interactions with my own family may sound cold and foreign. But to me, this newfound kinship is preferable to the dynamic when I was growing up. That being said, when I got to college and was bombarded by several — four, to be exact — homesick first-years asking me whether or not I had called my parents in the past week, I was somewhat frustrated by the fact that I was made to feel as if I was doing something wrong by not frantically typing into a stupid family group chat. At the time, I had felt as if things were going well. 

If any of the four people who told me to call my parents had approached me in a prudent fashion, they would have not have found that I have an unsatisfying relationship with my parents. My family still loves each other — we just express it differently. We talk from time to time and tell each other the important happenings in our lives, but we do not frequently express our feelings toward each other. Perhaps it is somewhat unconventional, but that’s nobody’s business.  Of course, it is great to  have an openly loving relationship with your parents, but relationships differ from person to person, and parent-child relationships are no exception.

Opinions expressed on the editorial pages are not necessarily those of WSN, and our publication of opinions is not an endorsement of them.

A version of this article appeared in the Monday, Oct. 29 print edition. Email Sima Doctoroff at [email protected].