One of the greatest resources available to us is our parents. Come midterm season, it may not seem like they are such an asset because there’s no way your mother can help you learn OChem over the phone from across the country. But as an emotional support, parents are invaluable and I am always surprised that it is not more common to be in constant contact with them.

I am well known to my friends as the guy who will invariably excuse himself to call home once in the morning, once in the afternoon and once in the evening without fail. Personally, I like to call my parents when I walk to campus in the morning and when I walk home in the evening, with a lunchtime break call in the middle. For me that is the best time since my parents are in Ohio with a three hour time difference from California, so I end up calling them around their lunchtime, dinnertime, and at bedtime.

But why call home so regularly?

I am not suggesting that everyone should start calling their parents as obsessively as I do, but I’d like to note the impact it’s had on my college experience. Be it the initial freshman woes of not making any friends and the shock from difficult classes or the mundane news that I did in fact wake up on time and eat breakfast before coming to class, I discuss almost everything with my parents. Not to ask permission or guidance or anything like that, but because they are the two people who will always give a crap about what’s happening in my life.

Even the best of friends or the closest of significant others will not always be able to make time for you the way a parent can, because they are the people who have seen you grow up. Your parents are the people who know best how you handle stress and work through problems, and even if they may not be able to always be expressive or engaging they will always try to make to listen.

So essentially they are your 100% free 24-hour on-call venting hotline.

College is a difficult and formative time for everyone, and especially at a place like Berkeley where people are not always willing to share their problems with everyone, it is helpful to be able to let someone know when you are having trouble, or when you have a small victory. Think about it: it’s incredibly difficult to find someone who will listen when you start freaking out over a midterm, or when you’ve completed something small that nobody else would care about, so why not utilize that resource to the maximum?

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