My favorite job when I worked at REI in Austin, was to help parents who's Freshman children had gone off to college in the Northeast with no flipping clue about how to dress for the weather. The best was when they would come home at Thanksgiving and try to get their parents to buy them mountaineering jackets, which…

You just reminded me...I am THAT mom, too! There was a massive warehouse fire in Savannah, and I text-blitzed my daughter. "Oh, my god! Can you breathe? Do you have classes near there?!" She took this pic.

We received this newspaper clipping from my mother-in-law, recently. "TAKE A JACKET!"

http://www.buzzfeed.com/morganshanahan…

Oh gawd, I don't even want to think about the financial aid/college app shit which will be starting much too soon. Ugh.

Nope. Me neither. I need to tone it down a notch because on some level of Momness I'm afraid she won't know how to operate without my constant instruction when she goes away to college, so I need to back off and let her learn it.

Haha, when my mom can't help imparting the momness, I can't help imparting the teenagerness of 'DUHOFCOURSEIKNOWDUH'.

'Nicer' is relative I think. In situations where she is convinced I will somehow manage to kill myself (keep in mind I've made it to 26 with only some minor PTSD to contend with, so I'm doing pretty well) does she go into FULL CONCERNED MOM MODE.

Start with "a flashlight app is not a flashlight. Get a flashlight".

Also, do not trust that your children have temperature receptors in their skin (maybe it skips a generation?). Also don't think about how they moved away years ago, have been dressing themselves and have managed to survive this long since being independent from you. Repeat many times that they need to dress warmly.

That... that would literally kill her. I'm not ready to be the cause of my mother worrying herself to death.

You'd get along well with my mom then. I think she's convinced she'll explode if she doesn't Impart Mom Knowledge at least once a week.

See, now, I'd be tempted to do the opposite: "The heat went out but it's ok, we still have gas to the oven. I'll just pop that puppy on for a couple hours and leave the door open. I'm turning my phone off after this text to conserve battery life. LOVE YOU! YOU'RE THE BEST MAMA EVER!!!"

My mom's favorite bit of DUH NO SHIT advice, should you wish to utilize it: "Jess, honey, there is a storm coming your way so please make sure you have food and also do not use your oven to heat your apartment if the power goes out you'll die."

tell him how to dress warmly "hats gloves scarf! it's going to be bitter cold!" and make this conversation at least 3 times longer than it could possibly need to be. do not accept the fact that he has a window to look out of, or the internet to know the weather from.

I'm sitting down on the ground by my outlet where my phone is charging because mom advice is good advice haha

I live in Boston and I got a text two hours ago. Pretty sure she think I'm going to die:

i live with my parents, but they are currently on vaca in florida (and now stuck there until friday). i woke up to two missed calls, two texts, and two emails begging me not to go to work and to call her and they all had the word "dangerous" in them at least once.

i am a fucking poet