8 Ways That College Is A Time of Doing the Exact Opposite of What Our Parents Told Us

Our parents spent 18 years preparing us for the world. Now that we're on our own, we do what we want, often to our doom.

Our early years in our parent's house were spent learning a lot of do's and don't, a lot of life lessons, and a lot of cliches we rolled our eyes at.  Usually our teenage years we feel like we are under the heavy boot of Big Brother and can't wait to get out the house. College, for many, is the first time we are on our own away from home and our parent's edicts, so we respond by basically complete rebellion against everything they've ever taught us.  Here's compelling proof that during College we do the exact opposite of what our parents told us to.

1) "Don't make faces like that or it will get stuck"

In an effort to rebel against our parent's ban on making faces, these girls have resorted to looking like aquatic birds for aesthetic reasons. The plus side is they're really good at eating spaghetti. 

Miley Cyrus is seen here making faces as some sort of desperate yet brilliant marketing campaign to look really stupid in order to be famous. 

2) "Eat Your Vegetables"

Here we observe the college student eating the most well rounded of all it's meals.  Peppers and Onions are free? No thank you, I might as well be eating brussel sprouts. Oh Hubble sucks again today? Greasy Pizza it is.

Because nothing says "brain food" for studying late at night than the well rounded options from the vending machine. 4 hours for 10 pages? Get me a red bull and it's done.

3) "Don't Sit Too Close To The TV"

We all got yelled at for this as a kid. It's not gunna ruin my eyes I'm just blocking your view. 

So I'm gunna sit as close as I want because the closer I sit the easier it is to kill zombies.  If I sit far away then I startle the witch and now I'm dead, thanks mom. 

4) "If all your friends jumped off a bridge would you?"

There is a lot of truth to this one.  It's a testament to the power of peer pressure.  But in college, Yes! We Would! Many times metaphorically, we are caught into the same game of fitting in and feeling cool that we should have grown out of in high school. So that's not good. But literally, I want to go bungee jumping, especially if all my friends are!

5) "Nothing good happens after midnight"

This one is also true, unless you're up killing zombies.  And despite what stupid movies like "National Lampoon's Van Wilder Goes to Nebraska" will tell you, staying out until 4AM, getting blackout drunk three times a weekend, throwing up and hooking up, is terrible. I did my share of partying and let me tell ya, nothing beats a night of Live Mafia. As a great college Dean once said, "Fat, drunk, and stupid is no way go through life, son."  

6) "Go to church"

As a good friend of mine is prone to say, "Don't spend your Sundays listening to the Honorable Reverend Snooze."  Church seemed super boring growing up but college is a time to actually take ownership of your faith and think about what you believe, church (and your local InterVarsity) is a great place to start.

You'll discover that Church, for all it's eccentricities, is really your extended family and those aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents are there to love you.  You'll find yourself growing in faith on your own and get some free meals out of it as well. 

 7) "Read Your Bible" 

Studying is overwhelming at time and "reading your Bible" seems like another churchy thing our youth group pastor told us to do.

But actually a well read Bible is your greatest friend and ally in your relationship with God. 99% of the despair we face in life will come from a misconception, in some way, of God's good news. Study, absolutely, but there is no better investment in yourself than giving 10 minutes a day to read a chapter or two.

8) "Say Your Prayers"

Growing up we were always told to brush our teeth and say our prayers before bed.  So prayer became this routine thing you did before bed, meals, and church. In college, prayer becomes an afterthought. 

But in my experience, prayer is more like this. Pouring my heart out to Him, usually in my car alone, with all of the junk I am struggling through. Prayer can be a conversation or it can just be silently sitting in His presence. For more ideas about how to make prayer interesting click here for a previous blog entry.

So remember, next time you hear that internal voice of skepticism from your parents about what you're doing, your parents are wiser than you think now and *much* wiser than you thought as a teenager.  Sometimes they were dropping brilliant truth nuggets, other times they just wanted you to stop making that face because you were being annoying. College is a time, not to disregard everything they ever taught you, but to separate fact from fiction and learn and how to grow in your relationship with God not as a child dragged to VBS, but as an adult discerning God's will for your life. 

Seth