Backpack for University

[Shimy]

Just occurred to me that DS will need one for uni. What’s everyone else’s child using or what would you recommend? Im particularly interested in:

Ability to store laptop of about 17inch plus folder
Very good back support! So good shoulder straps and padding.

I’ve looked on amazon and there’s a myriad of back packs it’s difficult to know what to choose from.

I think helping your student son or daughter to get ready for leaving home is one thing but to be so involved as to needing advice on a Public forumabout one item is way too involved.
Suggest your child ask her friends which one they are getting...maybe?

I don't think I have ever 'controlled every aspect of my child's life' have you?

Blimey who would have thought a simple post about a request for rucksack recommendations would cause so much angst about the mother-child dynamic.

It’s only a bag.

As parents we have more experience about bags as we have lived longer (!) and will look for the more practical elements. As it’s our money that will pay for it I don’t want Dd to end up with one that going to hurt her back/ not have enough space so we end up having to buy another one that is more practical soon after, when she has had the experience. I also value other people’s experiences, like the OP, as there’s lots and lots of choice.

This is all rather basic to the point I am even questioning why I am typing it out.

We live miles from shops. Amazon is our friend. I will give Dd some advice (from what I think and suggestions on here) and she can choose from there. I can imagine some posters’ children aren’t that bothered about what they take/ are so horizontal they wouldn’t get anything so why go through trial-and-error from the first thing they grab when they get to uni. This is the situation I expect to be with my second child. I will probably have feedback from the first by then. I may even put my recommendations on here .

I totally agree with your earlier post @Waxonfeckoff. But then I just drove an hour each way yesterday to take DS some stuff from home he needed.
On the backpack front, I bought DS a rather sensible one, an expensive model reduced in TKMaxx, ( I gave it to him for Xmas 😳) and when he turned up his roommate had exactly the same one, which caused a bit of confusion. I suspect the other lad had an equally sensible mother, doesn't seem to have held either of them back.
Also, I'm over fifty and my parents still treat me from time to time and also bought DS some stuff for uni, because why not?. DS has helped them out with IT stuff, but I suppose he could have told them they were adults who need to sort themselves out!

Quite Trewser

Always on mn there are posters pissing on the ops chips on the uni threads. Stay out of higher education if you can’t be nice. Buying your son a back pack will not make him incapacitated t do anything else.

I expect my children will always be my children, grown up or not. What else should they be called.

TKMaxx often had good bargains in backpacks IME, I've had some good bargains there, well known brands.

Maybe you should keep off the Higher Education forum if you do not want posters posting about.....higher education, roisinagusniamh

Well obviously not Trewser otherwise I would not be advising you and others to step back a little.
My children will ask for advice and we'll help if we can but they get their own stuff. We will, however, make time to drop our Uni student off at Uni.

We will, however, make time to drop our Uni student off at Uni

That's big of you

It was tongue in cheek...

@ZandathePanda
I can imagine some posters’ children aren’t that bothered about what they take/ are so horizontal they wouldn’t get anything so why go through trial-and-error from the first thing they grab when they get to uni.

Because that's how you grow up.
It's nothing to do with you. Let them figure it out, including making mistakes.

I've not only seen this dynamic in my own family and my in-laws (with catastrophic results), but I used to teach in universities.

I recognise these parents. They don't understand that their "child's" university experience is not theirs. They are the parents who send angry emails when their third-year offspring gets pulled up for plagiarising their dissertation.

They don't let go. I'm not the only person (by a long way) who can read that loud and clear in the OP's post.

And @Trewser yes, it is totally weird and unnecessary to discuss with your son or daughter whether or not they are packing condoms. That's not an admirably honest relationship, that's a relationship with messed-up boundaries and a lack of privacy.

This was the particular phrase:

Over the past fortnight it has been an absolute pleasure sitting down with her with a coffee or a glass of wine, looking through her lists of stuff to take and thinking together about coats, sports stuff, bags and yes, condoms!

That's not something to want to emulate. Why is it a 'pleasure' to 'think together' with your adult daughter about condoms?

Do you consult your own parents about your contraception?

Ds plans to use his secondary school backpack from Nike. He picked it because of colour and discreet brand logo (which is his style). Supportive straps etc would never have been a consideration. It's lasted 3 years + but doesn't look it at all.

It’s obviously very trendy but have you seen the prices?!?! Poor students!?! I think not.

Maybe they are fakes?

I can imagine some posters’ children aren’t that bothered about what they take/ are so horizontal they wouldn’t get anything so why go through trial-and-error from the first thing they grab when they get to uni.

His accommodation is in the town centre and he knows how to return stuff to shops/online brands like Boohoo and Amazon. I have no clue if his bag will be ok but I know that he can work that out himself and select a better bag if need be.

As it happens, DS will take the backpack he has had at school for the last few years I suppose as neither he nor I have thought about it. But he doesn't have much money and his loan hasn't come through, and I do have money, so I would have no compunction about buying him one. And in fact when I bought the backpack he currently has I looked on Mumsnet for recommendations, searched online and then asked him which of the ones I had found he liked best.

I think some people have really weird ideas about boundaries and the sudden onset of adulthood. DS is only just 18 and is more than happy to receive advice and help. He also doesn't care much about backpacks, though he cares about T-shirts and shoes and bands so buys those himself (or asks me to buy the ones he's chosen for him).

The starting secondary school threads are the same - you can't possibly give your child a lift in the first couple of weeks because they need to be independent and they will fail as adults if you do. Well, strangely, I did give my kids lifts in the first couple of weeks and for years now they have used public transport quite happily and they come home on their own steam at 4 in the morning.

Well, obviously he doesn't buy bands, but buys records....

And @Trewser yes, it is totally weird and unnecessary to discuss with your son or daughter whether or not they are packing condoms. That's not an admirably honest relationship, that's a relationship with messed-up boundaries and a lack of privacy

Well, it takes all sorts to make a world doesn't it? I'm a feminist. My daughter is a feminist. We talk about sex and boundaries a lot. We both agree even though she's on the pill that condoms are essential to prevent stds. We don't discuss the actual sex that she has! My dd loves me and loves our relationship and often says she's lucky that she can talk to me. I think so too, but I know its not for everyone.

It is truly amazing to me that the majority of posters on mumsnet who get on their high horses about university and parents are people who work or used to work at universities.

I really hope some of them are bollocks, otherwise there are a lot of clueless, judgemental individuals working at UK universities!

Oh dear ....I have just bought DD2 a new backpack! I wasn’t aware that this is too involved. And she is going into her 4th year. She did want an identical replacement to the last one I purchased at the beginning of 6th form.
Mind you, I bought my sister a pair of trainers for her birthday recently 😉

You realise that she's cursed now, hellsbells ?

Do you consult your own parents about your contraception? I did as a matter of fact. I was 17 and went and asked my dr for the pill. Then i told my mum. It's nothing to be embarrassed about by the way.

Yep, I've destined DS2 to be a bachelor living at home for the rest if his life, as not only have I bought him a backpack, I bought him some new tshirts and jeans and underwear for him going away. Funnily I know what he likes as he lived with me and I see what he wears. He was chuffed and wore one the new tshirts for moving day. He's 2 and a half hours away, seems to have managed to socialise, feed himself, do some laundry and attend his first lectures over the last couple of weeks. He actually does have some difficulties that means he will need some extra support, but he is managing fine. His academic stuff is between him and the uni, but he's still my son and I didn't give up caring for him when we dropped him at uni.

It's not about not caring for them Waxon, it's about cutting the apron strings and allowing them to live their own lives with the right level of involvement.IThat's what parenting is all about.
I know a parent who phones her daughter (at uni)every morning to wake her up.
I get why people who work at Universities get fed up with over involved parents.

@Trewser
It is truly amazing to me that the majority of posters on mumsnet who get on their high horses about university and parents are people who work or used to work at universities.

I really hope some of them are bollocks, otherwise there are a lot of clueless, judgemental individuals working at UK universities!

Rather than being 'truly amazed' and dismissing the people with knowledge and experience, did you ever pause to think that the reason that so many of us who have worked at universities have this opinion is because we've seen the results of this kind of smothering, overstepping, controlling, micromanaging parenting many times over?

And that maybe if some of those parents took on board what we're saying, their "children" wouldn't be crying because they can't get an extension on an assignment, or handing in plagiarised work and expecting Mummy to pick up the pieces?

I've even heard of parents turning up to job interviews with their "children" after they've graduated.

You can sneer and mock and call people liars etc. if you want to, but this is a widespread issue and it's not doing the younger generation any favours at all.

My kids are a few years off university age, but I don't do anything for them that they could do themselves. I'd rather they made the mistakes and learned themselves, as long as it's nothing actively dangerous or risky.

Do you consult your own parents about your contraception? I did as a matter of fact. I was 17 and went and asked my dr for the pill. Then i told my mum. It's nothing to be embarrassed about by the way.

I didn't ask 'DID' you consult your parents when you first went on the pill - which I think is totally normal, and I did the same when I was 16.

I asked 'DO' you. As in do you, now, aged 30/40/50 something, sit down and have a cosy chat with your mum about whether or not you're going to pack condoms when you go on holiday?

Do you not see the difference? One is a young person starting on contraception for the first time - ideally their parents should know about that. There's a world of difference between that and you having a completely unnecessary and boundary-crossing discussion with your adult daughter about whether or not she is going to pack condoms.

One is looking after your child's health. The other is talking about things that should be part of life as an independent adult, who's grown up and has a private, independent life.

And despite your dig, I am a feminist, so is my daughter, and I have no problem talking to her/answering her questions about sex, and I will be happy to support her in getting contraception when she's a bit older.

But I won't be chatting with her about which condoms she's going to pack for university. I'm surprised you can't see that distinction.