Voice of 'Mother' instills fright in students returning home

It has to end some time. For most of us, the four, five or six years spent at Penn State are a kind of vacation from the real world. We can live on pizza and beer. We can chain-smoke with no apparent ill-effects on our lungs. Three hours of sleep a night is the norm.

We have total freedom. And aside from the call home every week or so to let our loved ones know we're OK, that freedom goes relatively unimpeded.

That is, until graduation.

Bottom line is that the job-market is not so friendly, and many University grads are forced to move back home. With mother.

Suddenly your pleasure-seeking days are over.

Let the nagging begin.

"(Mother) will ask me to do something, and I'll be like, I'll do it later . . . I don't like doing things," said Kim Lenetsky (senior-communication disorders).

Lenetsky will graduate in May and then move back home. She plans on staying home for a year -- at the most, she said, "because after being on my own for all these years -- not that I don't have all the freedom in the world at home -- it's just time to live alone."

Those of you who plan on moving home after graduation might want to see Mother, now playing at Cinema Five, 116 Hiester St.

It is the story of middle-aged John Henderson, played by Albert Brooks. Coming off his second divorce, he decides that the dysfunctional relationship he has with his mother, played by Debbie Reynolds, is the cause of all the failed romances he's had.

So John moves back into the house in which he grew up, hoping to figure out the relationship with his mother. By doing this, he thinks he'll be able to get on with his romantic life.

But he gets more than he bargained for.

Mother, as she's called, embodies almost every cliché about the suburban homemaker. She is a bargain shopper to a fault. She calls the icy coating that forms on top of too-old ice cream and sherbet "protective." She buys cheese by the pound. And she makes excuses, to anyone who will listen, as to why her grown child is living at home.

"She complains that I treat her like a baby. That's a problem when kids in their 20s come home," said Shelley Horton, mother of Jessica Horton, who graduated May 1996.

"I'm overprotective . . . I am concerned . . . when she wants to go out by herself . . . I'm always concerned when she wants to do things like that," Shelley Horton said.

But generally there is an adjustment for both the mother and the child. After the oldest child moves out, there is a change in all relationships in the house. So when that child moves back in, things are thrown awry.

"It's difficult for parents to have their kids move back, because they've readjusted," Nancy Darling, assistant professor of Human Development and Family Services, said. "They have to renegotiate all the rules . . . the parents are used to it being their own house," she said.

One of the major changes that has to take place is the distribution of responsibility. After living alone at school, the ex-student has his or her own way of doing things. And these probably will not be the same ways that their parents have adopted.

Problems arise, for example, when the ex-student keeps the same hours he or she did at school.

"I come home really late, and (mother) can't sleep until everyone's settled," Staci Lilienfeld (senior-communication disorders) said. She is graduating in May and living at home this summer.

"It's odd that my daughter can make plans and just leave the house at 10 p.m. and not give it a second thought," said Shelley Horton, whose daughter has been living at home since last May.

Then there is the issue of food, one of the major themes of the movie. Mother bought cheese buy the block, kept it in the freezer and had to cut it with an electric turkey-carving knife.

"Food is more than just what you eat, it's 'are you going to sit down and eat with the family,' " Darling said.

There is an adjustment, to be sure. Few parents have kegs of Yuengling Lager sitting in a tub in the kitchen. And forget about pepperoni and mushroom pizza for breakfast.

Penn State is far from the real world, so when graduates move back into it, lifestyle changes become necessary for survival.

Often the process by which these changes are made is ugly. Few in Happy Valley have to report in to their parents about what they're doing each day. So when a grad moves back home and wants to maintain that independence, fighting results.

"Autonomy is a big thing (for the student)," Darling said. But the parents often wonder, "If they really are autonomous, then why are you living at home? The parent is seeing them as still dependent."

Many students move back home due to a weak job market or to save enough money to live on their own.

"It's that you can't afford an apartment and the lifestyle you want," Darling said.

What it comes down to is adjustment. There will most likely be fighting, but eventually most of the issues will work out.

But Jessica Horton has survived.

"My mom is my best friend. We have a very nice relationship," she said.