Comment by dpcan | Hacker News Reader

Comment by dpcan | Hacker News Reader

I love the part about students walking around in their pajamas at the library during finals week. The "puppy room" sounds utterly ridiculous.

It's been a long time, but this happened at my University too. It was just part of the relentless competition among students to make other students think THEY had it so much harder than anyone else. It was like a badge of honor to be taking a 300 level class as a freshmen, or have to study all night long, or to be starving because you had so little money.

I did the same thing.

And when you get out of college, it just transfers over to parenting.

New parents walking around in sweat pants and their hair a mess to show that they got no sleep due to the newborn. Then when you have 4 kids, you like to pack 300 lbs of kid crap around with you to show that you have WAY more kids than that new parent, or you talk about how many sports you are taking your kids to, how big your grocery bill is, or whatever. It's all so silly. I'm not sure why we seek this recognition.

I'm wondering what comes after parenting at this point... I'm assuming wealth and how we use our freedom among other empty-nesters???

EDIT:

I'd like to state that I actually don't find any problem with much of this, I just don't understand it.

When we are in college, we are facing the most challenging courses and living situations we have ever faced to this point. We are learning from books, and how to handle life's struggles.

As a new parent, having a newborn completely uproots your life, and it IS incredibly challenging. EVERYTHING has changed at this point.

Then with lots of kids, yes, it too is crazy.

From then on, I have no idea.

And the "puppy room", well, to each their own.

You are interpreting behaviors in other people (hair a mess, sweat pants, lots of stuff) as a status signal. And it may be. But it's also possible that they are not trying to signal a particular kind of status, and are just trying to cope with challenges in their life.

I may be talking out of my ass here, but I think college educated people don't have lots of kids by accident.

The challenge is purely self-inflicted, so it's natural to assume they get something out of it, and status is the most obvious motivation.

Then again, they might be one of those weird mutants who actually like children.

If you dislike children, you're statistics that you're the weird mutant, not the other way around.

Yeah, the last part was bad sarcasm.

I'm not an evolutionary psychologist, but I imagine the only thing stronger than a social animal's desire for status would have to be their desire for children.

I think that the parents and college students dpcan was talking about are non-intersecting.

I interpreted it as a sequence. The concern for status "transfers over to parenting", perhaps in a similar way as the High School popularity contests are sometimes transferred (hopefully sublimated) to college.

Most people have a set of life goals they accomplish in sequence, such as college -> marriage -> career -> children (Some people switch them around or omit some of them)

I am, yes. But it's quite transparent most of the time. It's the kid with bad breath, greasy hair, and foul odor in the corner of the computer lab with a stack of books next to him that I would believe is truly stressed and finishing a project.

It's the kid who has pajamas on but still looks great, carries one book, a pen, and a coffee back and forth across the quad 6 times a day that I wonder about :)

Folks would bring cots and blankets during Finals week while studying in the Engineering building at my university. Engineering students were not being coddled - you had to put in countless hours of study to make the grade.

I just think it's a young person thing.

Pushing 40, if I went back to college, and all the kids were taking cots to the engineering building to sleep on while somehow getting ready for a final, I'm sure I'd have nothing to do with it. I'd push the midnight oil if I could, then I'd go home, sleep snug in my bed, and be back bright eyed and bushy tailed at 5am to get started again.

But when I was 20, I'd be there with my cot, no question.

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