The tearful goodbyes are just an act. They let their bottom lip wobble as you wave them back into the car, hug you within an inch of a cracked rib before trudging out of your dorm building. But once they're out of sight, I'm telling you, parents are wiping the crocodile tears and whipping out their phones to hop on Facebook. They're asking questions they have no business shouting from the digital rooftops, aka college-parent Facebook groups.
And I've found the most diabolical ones. From my time in my proverbial Trojan horse, lurking in university-centric parent pages, I've found that this might just be the superior empty-nester coping mechanism. Despite often reeking of helicopter parenting and doxxing a couple of poor, unfortunate souls, dare I say, sometimes the posts are a little, tiny bit heartwarming?
I've sourced 27 posts from parent Facebook groups for colleges all over the United States. Get a load of this: