![photo of moving box labeled "handle with care"](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!T1Kr!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fe9c62911-2dfb-4251-b0e4-b884f969ba4e_2205x3010.jpeg "photo of moving box labeled "handle with care"")
Is this really happening? Yes. Yes, it is.
The disoriented disbelief can seem like such a cliché. And it’s hard not to repeat proverbs like “The days are long, but the years are short.”
Now, this isn’t my first college transition rodeo as a parent. But it is my last.
While doing some last-minute shopping for XL Twin supplies, I could feel a dizzying anxiety as I got pulled into an e-commerce rabbit hole. It took me a moment, but I realized I already knew exactly why it’s easy to get a little intense about college move-in.
Years ago—even before TikTok was filled with elaborate dorm decor videos—I wrote this piece for Grown & Flown:
Mattress Topper Mania: What’s Behind Our Obsession with Dorm Bedding?
TL;DR: We ARE the mattress topper.
As I wrote in the essay:
“We aren’t the cool posters or the twinkle lights. The important, practical ways we care for our kids haven’t been flashy or visible. And sometimes, the invisibility of our efforts was an essential part of the gift of the sacrifices we make for our kids, doing the little things they could take for granted, the behind-the-scenes ways we kept them safe and showed our love even without saying the word. We were their foundation, the unseen but felt love and support. And we want some of that to go with them to college.”
It makes perfect sense that parents are so vulnerable to the marketing around college dorm supplies. Even when you are thrilled and grateful and proud that your kid is moving on to a new stage of life, the letting go comes, by definition, with a lot of loss.
The loss of their company, of course. But also the loss of control—or the illusion of it anyway. And for many of us, there can be a loss of identity, too. Who am I if I’m not packing lunches and attending performances and driving a kid to and from school?
It’s tempting to try to fill up some of that looming loss with stuff. Maybe if we buy the perfect shower caddy or storage ottoman, then we’ll still have at least an indirect role to play in their daily lives. And everyone will see how much thought and effort we put into our parenting, how much we love our kid.
We all want to be “good” parents.
Because we want to do right by our kids, of course. But if we’re honest, we also want others to know we’re good parents, too.
The most important foundations of our parenting may be the things no one else can really see. But we also want some of our efforts to be visible to the outside world.
While it might seem like a stretch, I can’t help but see parallels to the way diet culture affects how we care for our children.
We want to keep our kids safe and healthy. We want to set them up for success (however we define it). And in diet culture, one of the ways we reassure ourselves—and signal to others—that we’re good parents is by conforming to the social expectations of what we should be feeding our families.
It’s why we might feel guilty about not making rainbow bento box lunches even if we aren’t actually worried about following new dietary guidelines.
Just like the influencer offering a discount code on the must-have dorm bedding, the sales pitch from diet culture can be incredibly convincing. The idea that all of our problems would be solved by eliminating processed foods sounds great on paper, right? Even though we know nothing is quite that simple, we can still wrestle with a nagging sense we’re never doing enough or aren’t buying the “right” things.
I don’t have a clever way to wrap up everything neatly or offer a simple takeaway—can I blame the stress of impending household upheaval?—but I do want to say I have so much empathy for every parent who’s felt uncertain or stuck when it comes to raising kids. We’re all in this together!
Compassion for fellow parents has been my guide every step of the way as I’ve worked on my manuscript, which is now “in production” at the publisher.
Parenting Without Diet Culture: How to Raise Healthy, Body-Confident Kids will be out in 2027. Stay tuned for a cover reveal (so exciting!).
And in the meantime, I’ve got some questions for you:
If you went to college, do you have memories about drop-off or your first dorm?
If you’ve already become an empty nester, do you have any advice for someone entering this phase of life?
Where do you see diet culture’s perfectionism affecting your parenting?
Last week’s newsletter includes a piece I wrote for Romper about body image and back-to-school clothes shopping. Whether you’ve got a tween or teen, I think you’ll find some useful tips:
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