Amarillo College Ranger

Issue date: 11/9/06 Section: Features

Media Credit: Charlotte Daniels [Click to enlarge]

Moving back home is something I am all too familiar with. Moving away from home to go to school, although only two hours away, was one of the best feelings of my life.

Last fall I finally escaped from under the thumb that my parents had kept on me for so many years. It was great.

Which makes it all the more ironic that I ended up back in Amarillo - living with my parents.

At the end of last spring I decided I would at least come back for the summer, more for money-making reasons than anything else, but there were, of course, some mixed feelings of homesickness. It was more like confusion than sickness.

To make a long story short, that confusion ended up with me staying at home for the fall semester.

If I thought my freedoms had been restricted in high school, I had no idea what I was in for now that I already had tasted the sweetness of being in charge of myself for an entire year and then being put back into a life of rules that made no sense to me.

Coming back home is a situation that many students have come to experience.

For some it may be punishment. For others it may be a great chance to help them after being exposed to bad situations away from the nest.

"The price of school is a big advantage of coming back home in my case," said Nathan Bettis, a student who came back last semester after spending his first semester at Abilene Christian University.

Bettis said one disadvantage is "not having classes with as many people my age as I did at ACU."

Another returning student, Trevor Spradling, said "financial security" is a big advantage of coming home.

"You don't have to worry about paying for stuff like you do when you're away," Spradling said.

Growing up at home, I always had rules such as a 12 o'clock curfew on weekends and 10 o'clock on weeknights, and I always had to let my parents know where I was among other things.

I know those rules were to keep me safe and out of trouble.

When I moved to Lubbock to go to Texas Tech University, my life was a lot different.

I honestly would be out most nights until anywhere from 12 to 1, but I never was doing anything that could get me into trouble.

Literally every night, my friends and I would stay at the Rec Center playing basketball until 12. That's just the college student schedule.

The fact is that I never even had to think about when I needed to get home or how much sleep I had to get. Every student knows that what some would call a steady sleeping schedule is just not practical when you are in college.

Whether that freedom sounds serious or not, when you go home and are subjected to the same rules as you were in high school, things aren't going to mesh like they used to.

Some parents allow their kids to have their new independence by stepping back and letting them live their own lives (which I admit may not always be the best choice with certain individuals).

But sometimes parents just have to realize that they've put in their time for teaching their child the right way to live.

There is a point in life that everyone goes through when they have to learn for themselves.

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