Allowing college kids to deal with cold showers for 2 days

Ds would happily not have a shower for two days... If me fetching him made a difference to him having one I'd do it.

But when we had no hot water for a couple of days people offered their house for a shower.
So I wouldn't want to go without, and especially with that sort of thing you can think it'll be two days then they put you off for an emergency for a day, need another part and it would become a week...

I can’t imagine even mentioning this to my parents when I was at university (mid nineties), unless having a general catch up. The idea of one of them driving to get me to spare me 2 days of pits and bits washes is absolutely wild. I truly can’t comprehend that someone would think this is the best solution.

If I didn't have a friend with a working bathroom nearby I'd get myself home. I don't think a young adult actively needs their parent to come rushing along.

I do think that those parents that do that are the ones with the need 🤷‍♀️

I can’t imagine forking out for a cheap hotel room when I was at uni! Though I can imagine asking a pal in a different halls if I could come and use their shower. Or go to the sports centre, as you say. I also can’t even imagine involving my parents in any of this, though.

that's the beauty of this story.

It's "kids" who are being berated

but it's the mum who is all upset over social media, and the OP who is lecturing and making judgements.

Meanwhile the kids/ students are just getting on with their lives 😂

That’s not what the OP said, though - the OP said the mum was going to drive to collect her child. Not the same.

Four hours, not miles…. 4 miles is not an issue!

I come from a family that also helps each other out, but they also are reasonable and would not expect a parent to drive four miles, for a shower. They’d say “no mum, that’s too much”, I can manage for 48 hours.

You said I would find a way. That’s the point isn’t it, you find a way. Whether that’s saying I’ll go home for a couple of days, or going to the gym or whatever you are working it out and problem solving. OP is saying the mum (mom) is asking around as to whether she should go and bring her back home. Before rushing off to pick her up (sounds like the student hasn’t even requested that) the mum should at least ask what have the students done about it (contacted campus facilities or landlord).

If my DD had no hot water and wanted to use my shower she’d be welcome - but I wouldn’t be driving an hour each way to fetch her then another hour each way to take her back. That’s a 4 hour journey!

My eldest son starts his day with a cold shower.

I only had access to a bath in a shared bathroom for a whole year when I was an undergraduate. Unless I was washing my hair I did my morning ablutions standing at an old sink in the corner of my bedroom. Dated accommodation, but it did the job. I didn’t complain. Indeed, I think my parents only put a shower in their house when I was in my early teens, so showers seemed like a modern luxury.

It won't kill them to strip wash for two days if cold showers do not appeal. Tell them to warm water in the kettle and use a wash cloth. Or go to the gym.

I come from a family that wound happily go out of their way to help each other out - if it meant I had to drive far then so be it. The more sensible solution however is to get a cheap hotel room or gym pass with shower access, rather than driving all the way home.

To be fair the dd might have just mentioned it in passing as a moan and not actually be expecting her mother to do anything about it.

I think people on here are focusing in the wrong thing - of course if the dd wanted to make the effort herself come home to use her parents shower it would be mean to say no - but the mum wasting her time and effort to make four hour long journeys to pick her up and (presumably) drop her back is what is ridiculous - the cost of petrol would completely override the dd just buying a gym pass or whatever.

Plus, assuming from "mom" and "college" it's america - US college are huge, i doubt there's no hot water on the entire campus.

Oh the irony...

So much drama when you have to post on MN to figure this out when you really should be able to do it on your own😂

(and so you know, driving only 1 hour to go to a relative for a hot shower, and invite yourself for diner or something like a normal human being
IS literally figuring it out)

Presumably the elderly gran doesn’t have that many options, though. Given that she’s getting her bathroom adapted, I’m assuming she’s not that mobile, and maybe not able to get to a friend’s house or local leisure centre very easily. And for an older person, something like having no bathroom can seem like a much bigger deal, precisely because they may well have fewer ways to deal with it.

i just think that having no working shower for 2 days shouldn’t be that big a deal to an 18+ year old, especially to the extent of expecting a parent to take 4 hours out of their day to fix it for them.

I would absolutely just wash at the sink for a couple of days if I had to; it’s not that big a hardship assuming that the rest of the house is reasonably warm, and I’d fully expect my kids to do the same.

2 days without a hot shower is hardly "toughing it out". More of a minor inconvenience for a young adult. I'm not sure what character they'd be building by coping with that 😅

I thought it was 2 days?

The OP is taking about mum dropping everything to go and collect her child (and presumably deliver said child back). That’s not the same as working out a solution for yourself including getting yourself to your mum’s for a shower.

Another poster has suggested booking a hotel room!!! More money than sense there.

MN has this weird fetish with letting our kids 'tough it out' the second they are 18 as 'it's character building'. It's bollocks. I wouldn't take a cold shower for several days - I would find a way of having a proper shower, whether that means going to the gym, a friend's house or, shock horror, my mum's house.
I would of course return the favour - indeed we did when my elderly gran was having her bathroom adapted and she wouldn't have water for a few days. Should we have left her 'tough it out' and cope with cold water from the sink 'as it's character building'. Or shall we show some common kindness?

I worked two jobs for eight months to save up and my trip was entirely self funded. The main job had been in a mental health care facility with individuals who had violent tendencies so it paid quite well as it was not an easy environment to work in. I'd budgeted emergency money and had taken out a credit card with a few thousand limit on it which was my emergency back up if I needed to put something down for medical care or a flight home. I had bought quite comprehensive insurance and was travelling with a female friend. I kept copies of my passport and numbers of the British embassies for the countries I'd be travelling in. Kept my emergency credit card in a separate place to my day to day money etc. I was quite a sensible teen and I have always been a planner! Luckily nothing serious went wrong. This was twenty years ago and it was hard to get in contact at times, particularly in China, we sometimes couldn't email home for a week or two and the internet was so bad at times we couldn't even get our emails to load.

My parents would have supported as much as they could in an emergency but they didn't have much themselves- when I went to university I was eligible for the extra funding given to those with low income parents. There was also no easy way to get in contact with them quickly... this was before the iphone and wi fi in all the hostels so we were quite cut off. I don't usually feel so old at 39 but writing this now I wonder if I am! I guess even backpacking is a very different experience these days with translation apps rather than thumbing through phrasebooks! :)

If this had happened to me at uni, it would never have occurred to me to go to my parents (who were very supportive). They had lives; I wouldn’t have expected them to drop what they were doing and drive an hour to get me, an hour home, and then the same to drop me back. Not for the sake of a couple of days of washing in the sink or going to the gym. I’d probably have mentioned it when I was talking to them, but not expected them to do anything when it was firstly not that big a deal, and secondly, easy to sort myself.

In the unlikely event of my first year son even bothering to mention such a non event, it would be more in the spirit of me saying 'that sucks' rather than solving the problem for him. Jesus Christ almighty.

I'd probably try problem solving first before going to collect them and drop them back after a shower. Such as suggesting they try the uni gym, or external gym first.

But would probably collect them if they couldn't find somewhere to shower.

Surely they can head to a mates house or halls of residence?