12/26/2006

Home sweet home?

College students have mixed feelings during break

BY EMMY PARSONS
eparsons@record-eagle.com

Record-Eagle/Douglas Tesner
Allison Hock arrives home from the University of Michigan, where she is a freshman. Her boyfriend, Lance Dillon, and a friend, Dominic Merica, drove her home.

TRAVERSE CITY — When Jack Pettyjohn came home after being away for his first semester at Loyola University in Chicago, something didn't feel right.

"I hadn't been home for three months, and I walked in and it was just weird,” Jack said. "I mean, it was still my house and I knew where everything was, but my parents had moved the furniture.”

After his parents went to bed that first night, Jack moved the furniture back. He said it was difficult to readjust to life at home after making a new life for himself at school.

"I felt so at home in Chicago, so coming back here to Traverse City, it was like this wasn't home,” Jack said. "It was like it was just a place where I was staying.”

For college freshmen, returning home for holiday break can be a jarring transition. In Pettyjohn's case, it wasn't just the furniture that had changed; so had buildings — even roads — around town.

"I guess it's kind of weird just to see all the things that had been different when I was home,” said Allison Hoch, a freshman at the University of Michigan. "Even roads were open that had been under construction while I'd been gone”

Friends can also change. Old friends move away and new ones are back at school.

"You always think when you're at college that you're going to miss people at home, but it's weird when you're at home because you miss people back at college,” said Molly Kring, a freshman at Notre Dame University. "So it's like you're split between two places.”

Dr. Barbara Jones Smith, a Traverse City psychologist, said that first lengthy homecoming can be a time for these young adults to reflect on the changes that have occurred since high school graduation.

"It's a transitional period for the child: "Do I fit here anymore?' and for the parent: 'Is there room for the child to fit on more than just a temporary basis?'” she said.

At times the struggle to adapt to two very different styles of life can be a challenge for both the students and the parents.

"The child has been basically in their own world, setting their own schedule, living their own life while they're at college, and when they come home they're expecting to do the same, and their parents haven't really had that with them,” Smith said.

In addition to children becoming independent at school, parents also gain a sense of freedom once their children are gone. For Jack's mom Lynn and her husband Kirby, life on their own meant having more time for each other.

"My husband and I have had the opportunity to find the reason that we liked each other before, and it's about us and we go places together, we do things together, we laugh and joke about what we're cooking for dinner,” Lynn said. "We're not running to this (school) function and that function and we don't feel like we're split up because we have to cover everything. We're really having fun without having the responsibility of school and music and plays.”

Still, having her children return home after succeeding on their own is gratifying.

"We know we've done our job,” Lynn said. "My job will never be done being mom and hopefully in the future being grandma, but it's nice to see them. You know, you want your kids to be happy, but it's nice to see them confident and just to see their self-esteem high.”

And while conflicts can arise, Jack Pettyjohn and Molly Kring both said that being away made them appreciate life at home.

"I feel like our family's closer now that my brother (Donald) and I have gone away and come back,” Kring said. "I think you kind of realize what you had once it's gone.”

And Traverse City will always be home.

"Traverse City's still my home,” Hoch said. "It's where my family is and where my friends are, and just the familiarity of it I guess. No matter how cool Ann Arbor is I still look forward to going home every time.”