Took my son to my 35th college reunion recently.
The two main topics of the weekend: sexual assault on campus and alcohol abuse. My son is 12. Not exactly the sort of misty-eyed reminiscence to which I thought I would expose him.
A lawsuit, filed the day before reunion weekend, claimed the college had expelled a student for drunkenly forcing a female classmate to give him oral sex. That’s an awful lot to explain to a 12-year-old.
The young man filing the lawsuit and his accuser were both intoxicated, according to news reports. So was pretty much everyone else at the reunion, my son noted. “Why is everybody so drunk?” he asked me at the Saturday night class dinner.
“Why is everybody so drunk?” my son asked me at the Saturday night class dinner.
As I looked around the room and saw what he saw – a lot of mid-50s men and women drinking heavily and talking loudly – I tried several answers: Reunions are a socially acceptable time to get loaded; reunions are a time when people compare their lives with their expectations about how their lives would turn out; people enjoy being with old friends in a comfortable setting and kick back a little; and so on.
But the only explanation that made sense to him, and to me, was that a lot of people are very unhappy, and drinking helps them avoid contemplating their unhappiness.
It was hardly a grim weekend, to be sure. We ran into a lot of wonderful old friends, classmates I hadn’t seen in decades. We went for a run in the woods that ended up with us getting lost in the woods and hitchhiking – hitchhiking! – back to the campus. We attended two brilliant comedy shows in which famous alums performed. We also attended several illuminating discussions about the future of the college. I even joined fellow alumni Glee Clubbers who represented a 60-year span of attendance to sing the old college songs.
I even joined fellow alumni Glee Clubbers who represented a 60-year span of attendance to sing the old college songs.
Yet the specter of the sexual assault lawsuit and the eye-widening (for a 12-year-old) consumption of alcohol hung over the weekend and raised questions I wasn’t comfortable answering and have yet to answer.
It all comes down to the degree to which any college or university is responsible for regulating the lives of its resident students, and the degree to which adults effectively regulate their own behavior.
On the first issue, as a parent I have to ask: Is this the kind of college experience I want for my son? On the second: Is this the kind of world that my generation is bequeathing to the young?
You don’t want him in a place where underage alcohol abuse is socially acceptable and often leads to drunken and potentially litigious sexual encounters.
You want your kid to go to a good school. Does he only apply to Brigham Young?
Like many alums of many schools, I love my college and look back with great fondness at my four years there – four years that, from this vantage point, look as though they belong to another lifetime.
My school is not the only college grappling with the challenges of acting in loco parentis in an alcohol-washed, sexually charged digital era. Practically every school struggles with these issues. I have faith that my college’s leaders will get it right, sooner rather than later, and that these issues will work themselves out appropriately on campuses across the country.
I also know that my job of educating my children won’t stop anytime soon.
As a parent, it’s not just college reunions that make me feel as though I’ve gotten a whole lot more than I bargained for. Our popular culture means that parenting requires my wife and me to serve as human bulwarks against the tide of inappropriate ideas and images. I took my other son, when he was 11, to a movie called Divergent that was so violent and upsetting I couldn’t believe it was made explicitly for kids.
Our popular culture means that parenting requires us to serve as human bulwarks against the tide of inappropriate ideas and images.
One of my boys’ favorite shows was The Cleveland Show. Key word in that sentence: was. It’s a cartoon, and it has kids in it, which in decades past typically indicated the show was appropriate for children. Wrong. My kids aren’t allowed to watch The Cleveland Show anymore. The overt sexuality is more than a 12-year-old should witness. I’m not a prude for my own sake, but I am when it comes to my boys.
There’s no place to hide from today’s pop culture. This situation creates a new level of stress in family relationships, or at least in ours.
I’d like to think that my kids believe I have their best interests at heart. They’re smart; they realize the world doesn’t operate with their best interests in mind.
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Don’t get me wrong. My son and I had a great time at my college reunion. I just never imagined he would learn so much at college … and so soon.
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