Wanted: Distractions for My Middle-Aged Parents

In an ideal world, Family Weekend would be the perfect opportunity for my parents to recognize my newfound maturity as they witness me navigate campus and student life with ease. Instead, they’ll arrive on campus to find me in a state of derangement induced by the three midterms that magically chose to schedule themselves on the first two days of Family Weekend (awfully convenient timing, universe). As much as I would like to spend time with them this Family Weekend (and will during the weekend portion of it), I will desperately need my privacy to study (and cry), so I’ve started brainstorming places to deposit them while I face my academic strife. In the interest of not gatekeeping, here are the places at the top of my list.

Your Room

I mean, it’s your room, so you make the rules. No one can tell you not to leave your parents unsupervised in your dorm room for extended periods of time… except the housing contract. And maybe your conscience. This Family Weekend, your parents can walk a mile in your shoes (read: pace back and forth in the jail cell you call home) and experience your living conditions firsthand. If Family Weekend is about parents “learn[ing] all that Harvard has to offer,” I can think of no better place to start than the living accommodations. However, you will need to dedicate some time before your parents arrive to sanitizing organizing your room, lest your parents find contraband spend the rest of the weekend questioning your ability to function.

Your House Courtyard

If you’d rather not leave the fam unsupervised in your room, consider depositing them in your House’s courtyard. Since many of the House courtyards require swipe access to leave (why), they’re incredibly secure, meaning that your parents won’t be able to escape will stay safe. We might be screenagers, but our parents’ childhoods were iPad-less and very focused on the outdoors, if my mother is to be believed. Sitting on the manicured lawn at the center of your House will allow them to reconnect with nature and reminisce about their younger days. If the weather is warm, they’ll have the perfect opportunity to enjoy the end result of the gazillion chemical treatments Harvard sprays on its grass. If it’s cold, they might be less inclined to romanticize campus, but you can use that to your advantage; after feeling the chill, they’ll be much more receptive to your arguments about your caffeine needs if you insist that you use the drinks as hand warmers.

One of the Libraries

Many campus libraries will allow parents to visit — even unaccompanied! — provided they come with their Family Weekend buttons pinned to their chests. (The same goes for the on-campus museums and gyms.) So drop your parents off and then, like, leave. At a run. (If I’m roped into providing a comprehensive tour of my reading period bunker, I might spontaneously combust. Never good when surrounded by flammable materials.) By design, libraries can occupy guests for several hours in a row, providing both distractions (i.e. books and computers) and basic amenities (i.e. restrooms and vending machines), but that honestly doesn’t matter much; my parents really just need a temperature-controlled space to find more motivational messages to spam me with on WhatsApp.

Off Campus

OK, you’re not leaving campus any time soon, but you can live vicariously through your parents. Boston and the rest of Massachusetts offer many attractions suitable for a day trip, especially if this is your family’s first time visiting and they haven’t yet visited the typical tourist haunts. From Cape Cod’s beaches and the historical monuments in the Charlestown Navy Yard, to food tours in the North End and a ridiculous number of museums, your parents will have ample opportunity to enjoy themselves (without you, unfortunately) once they leave the black hole of joy that is campus. (I love campus, actually. Truly. Totally.) However, if your parents are like mine, they will rely solely on you for recommendations and then will proceed to ignore 80 percent of them, so you might be better off devoting that time to studying for your midterm.

Undefined

Your parents are adults. So maybe, just maybe, it’s not on you to micromanage the hours you’ll have to spend away from them this Family Weekend. Let them explore! If the number of tourists is any indication, the Yard and the Science Center Plaza are enjoyable regardless of your familiarity with campus. Plus, your parents can try their hand at a new brand of Russian Roulette: seeing if the random people they greet in the Yard are other families of students or just another set of tourists.

Your parents might be miffed at being unceremoniously abandoned in a corner of campus at first, but I’m sure they’ll come around eventually… most likely after you spend way too much time with them this weekend and thus doom yourself to the scariest of Sunday Scaries. No one said juggling parents and schoolwork was easy.