Parents, Keep Those Back-To-School Posts Coming

You never know who appreciates them the most.

It’s my favorite season on social media: back-to-school and, most importantly, off-to-college.

Every year at this time, Facebook and Instagram become digital college tours laced with melancholy humblebrags. Parents dropping kids at college for the first time mark the occasion with the requisite photos of stark dorm rooms (the posters will go up as soon as they leave) and final goodbyes on the grassy lawn (if you look closely, you can see a tear in Dad’s eye).

Each post tells its own story, though at the end of the day, the plot is the same. The child who is no longer a child stays behind and starts a new life. The parent who is still a parent goes home and mourns the loss of the old one—and posts photos on social media. Hello Wellesley! Hello Vanderbilt! Hello Georgetwon! #blessed #launched #SoProud #GoHoyas

The stories told by these photos will be highly revisionist, but that’s part of the social media contract. Users know they’re getting an embellishment. I know that my friend’s kid, standing in front of an Old Campus dormitory wearing his Yale sweatshirt, has likely given his parents all kinds of grief on his way to the finish line. But in the moment, he is the living embodiment of their highest aspirations.

He is also, in this case, a rare specimen, since barely any of my friends’ kids get into Yale now.