Starting college?

Have you noticed all the going-back-to-school commercials targeted at college freshmen and their parents that have cropped up in the past few months? I've started to see a trend that not only encourages but also sanctions the irresponsible and risky lifestyle of college students that the media has been so fond of portraying. The latest Target commercial, for example, features a student's mother (in all her maternal naivete) buying her son a bed comforter (which he subsequently uses to hide the fact that he's making out with a girl at a football game), a dorm-sized refrigerator (which he packs with Red Bull and other dangerously overly-carbonated drinks), and a desk lamp (which he uses as a blacklite to pimp out his raucous dorm room party). The last scene of the commercial shows the son calling his mom up, seemingly to report what a good student he's being.

Now, I went to a Christian college. My roommates never had boys sleep over. I never went to parties featuring beer kegs or drinking games. I got in trouble during my freshman year for overspending on my debit account, and I gained way too much weight on french fries and other junk food. So I'm not saying that I made the best choices as a college student. But the idea portrayed in these commercials that parents should stay blissfully ignorant while unleashing their irresponsible kids on the world to sew their wild oats is just absurd! I'm a big supporter of kids going away to college (because I've seen so many people my own age who lived at home during college or didn't attend college at all and now are living dead-end lives), but I also believe that with so much freedom comes a butt-load of responsibility. I think it's unfair for adults to expect and encourage kids to live irresponsibly during the first big test period of their lives. So to all my friends starting college this year: MAKE GOOD CHOICES!