GenX woman calls out parents who go overboard with their kids' college dorm decor

A child moving into a college dorm can be a difficult experience for both the parents and the kids. In such a case, most parents want their kids to be as comfortable and happy as possible with their new living situation. But sometimes parents can go overboard with trying to do just that. A GenX woman called out parents who do extravagant dorm decors for their kids. The woman, Kelly Manno—who goes by @kellymanno on Instagram—felt that parents are robbing their kids of essential life experiences by doing that.

As the video began, it featured a few clips from a college dorm, showing the kind of decor parents are doing for their kids. In between the clips, Manno rolled her eyes at the extravagance. "Bring back bullying!" she announced from a tissue roll megaphone. However, she immediately clarified that it isn't the kids who should be bullied but their parents. "When you do this extravagant s*** you are robbing your kids of really important life experiences," the woman pointed out. "Getting to college is when everyone is finally on a level playing field. Nobody cares about how much money your parents have. What you were or who you were in high school." She added, "You are all living in the same concrete prison stinky dorms."

Manno shared how such circumstances allow a person to become friends with people they wouldn't have been friends with in a normal situation. "The weirdos, the smart kids and the popular kids, they all come together. It's cool." She exclaimed, "But when you separate your kids like this, oh god!" The woman clarified that it was not even about the money. "If you are rich, spend your money however you want. Make your kid comfortable, get them the fancy Egyptian cotton sheets instead of the Walmart sheets." She continued, "Go, do your thing. But don't do this, don't do this." The mom concluded, "We cannot normalize this. We can't normalize this extravagant b*******."

The video received more than 441k views and many parents took to the comments section of the video to support the mom and call out the people who decorate their kids' dorms like that. @travelmamas wrote, "These are the same moms who needed everyone to sign up to bring snacks to the kids for every freaking event like children will die if not fed every hour. How will these kids function in the world without mommy there to do everything for them?" @ablas3643 commented, "We had dorm rooms with cinder block walls and no air conditioning. If you were lucky the people across the way would open their door and window so you could catch some cross breeze action."

@okgotraining shared, "My freshman orientation roommate and I could not have been more opposite. I came from a privileged, upper-middle class background and she came from a working-class family at this college on a scholarship. I wore heavy metal T-shirts and she wore those long Indian hippy skirts. We were not fans of each other. But we ended up having friends in common, started hanging out in friend groups and eventually became friendly enough that we chose to live together sophomore year. 34 years later, she is my best friend in the whole goddamn world; my soulmate. No matter where we are in the world, or our lives, we always find our way back to each other and pick up as if time never passed. An uncomfortable situation, not choice, threw us together and I couldn’t be more grateful."

You can follow Kelly Manno (@kellymanno) on Instagram for more lifestyle content.