I don’t normally find myself perusing the pages of such highfalutin periodicals as People Magazine, but this one came across my desk and dug into my brain like an RFK Jr.-loving worm.
This People “exclusive” tells the story of a Long Island woman moving her son, a sophomore, into his fraternity house at the University of Delaware.
The story begins: “When Lori Massaro arrived to move her 19-year-old son into his fraternity house, the 61-year-old mom thought she had a pretty good idea of what fraternity living would look like. Turns out, she was wrong.”
Massaro professes total ignorance when it comes to fraternity houses. “I never had any personal experience with fraternity houses,” the surprised mother told People Magazine — exclusively, they made sure to add. “So when Will decided he wanted to move into his fraternity house for his sophomore year, I really had no idea what to expect!”
I’m sorry, does this woman live under a rock? No experience with fraternity houses? Has she seen a movie before? Everyone knows exactly what to expect from a fraternity house. These infamous abodes are solidly embedded into American culture for exactly what they are.
Living in a run-down college house is a rite of passage. Bluto, Otter, Pinto, and Flounder taught me that.
I myself, while not in a fraternity, had the absolute pleasure of living in a 12-room, three-story Queen Anne mansion for the last two years of my college career. This decrepit domicile, cleverly dubbed “Columbus” because of the eponymously named street it sat on, served as the catalyst for some of the best friendships of my life.
The centerpiece of the house, like most college off-campus housing, was an area designed for … let’s call it “hosting.” At the very top of a rear staircase was a shoddily finished attic furnished with abandoned couches, mismatched carpets covering questionable holes in the floor, a handmade wooden bar, and something generously described as a stage. It was the perfect place to have a party, or so I would imagine.
There is something about living in a little bit of semi-squalor that forges lifelong friendships.
Lori Massaro did not get that message. “Massaro, however, couldn’t quite shake what she had seen,” the People exclusive continues. And here is where it really takes a turn for the mortifying.
“Having created TikTok and Instagram content for the past few years about her family, fashion, food and everyday life, she did what came naturally: She pulled out her phone and started filming.”
We should’ve seen this coming from a mile away. We are talking about People Magazine here.
This poor kid. Does he get a say in any of this? This guy just wanted to go live at his gross frat house like every other normal frat bro, and his social media addled mother had to come in and throw a grenade into all his plans.
The videos prompted all kinds of reactions from Massaro’s followers, the article tells us, but one response truly iced the cake.
“The mother of one of Will’s new housemates saw the video and reached out with an idea: The moms could start a ‘mom text thread’ and coordinate a major cleanup,” People tells us.
Good Lord. Just when things seemed like they could not get any worse for her son, she goes and gets his friends involved.
I don’t even think this counts as helicopter parenting. This takes it to a whole new level.
It’s not like my parents were some distant, uncaring folks, but when I moved into my off-campus house, all they wanted to know was whether the place had smoke alarms. Even after I confirmed that they were there, they sent a few new ones just in case. That was the extent of their intervention.
College isn’t the real world. It’s a lot more like fantasy land. There’s a cafeteria serving just about anything you could want, some days your only obligation is a single one-hour lecture, and oftentimes Wednesday becomes the biggest party night of the week.
But buried somewhere beneath all the cheap beer and bad decisions is an actual life lesson.
If you want to skip class and go do untoward things, then that is your prerogative, and you will learn to live with the consequences when you bomb the midterm. And if you want to live in some ramshackle house with your buddies for the memories, that is your choice too.
It’s very hard to learn from your mistakes if you’re never allowed to make any. That’s the whole point of college.
