How to Break the Ice with your College-Age Kid — Tips for Parents at Thanksgiving

How to Break the Ice with your College-Age Kid — Tips for Parents at Thanksgiving

by 614now Staff

Many of us forget but Parents have it the worst during Thanksgiving. Not only are they generally responsible for preparing a meal sometimes meant for upwards of twelve people, but they also have to socially engage with family members they haven’t seen in months. Yes, that means you, sophomore at OSU that can’t text or call…ever.

Parents are the backbone of the celebration, a few years ago — I had an opportunity to throw a parentless Thanksgiving and it was an abject disaster — everything was off and it didn’t have that…passive aggressive charm that comes with your parents slaving over a stove for like eight hours. We often forget that during this highly stressful day of cooking and organizing a family reunion — that social tact and etiquette are left by the wayside so we’ve got some starter questions that a parent can use to initiate thoughtful conversation with their kids.

We recently were on the internet and saw a spectacular meme but did not understand it — can you please explain this meme to us or at the very least show us some memes that would not frighten us.
We saw your facebook and have noticed you’ve taken a recent interest in social activism — would you like to hear a story about what it was like growing up in the 60’s and 70’s? Spoiler alert: we were all high.
We’ve made an attempt to listen to the kinds of music you listen to — and it is shocking and confusing but we would love for you to elaborate on why this is not “abject trash” and has “actual value” — as an aside, would you like to listen, for the 1,000th time, to the only CD we’ve ever owned, Cracked Rear View by Hootie & The Blowfish.
We heard that…people your age…are adding butter to their coffee. This frightens and confuses us but we made a commitment not to judge and so we’d like to know why you are adding pure salted fat to your caffeinated bean water, please — we do not understand. Did we fail you, is that why you’re drinking butter?
We do not understand craft beer — beer is a bad tasting drink that is only fun if you drink lots of them, can you please talk us through the finer points of drinking expensive, worse tasting beer? When we grew up, there was just beer now there are many “types” of beer, this is confusing.
We understand that your live-in boyfriend and/or girlfriend is very nice and has many qualities we like and respect — in the past we have brought up when you will be getting married, and have urged for a resolution to this matter, yet you resist. For respite and relief, we will not bring up this topic again and acknowledge that society is different from when we were growing up. Here is a slice of Pumpkin Pie. Enjoy.

We hope this guide helped make breaking the ice with your weird, alien-like children. Have a happy Thanksgiving.

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