All the things Mum made you pack for university

You’re never going to use a whisk


Before you experience Cardiff’s nightlife you have to tackle packing your childhood room. In an attempt to look helpful, parents try their damn hardest to help. But at the end of the year all that crap will be found in a box under your tiny Talybont bed, untouched.

Deciding what to bring does take hours. Kitchen utensils, bedding, cleaning products, clothes… do I need flannels? The list goes on.

Since you got your conditional offer, your mum has prepped a box of photographs and house ornaments for ‘sentimental value’. This box is a cornucopia of weird and wonderful items that you never knew existed. There will be cuts from old newspapers, broken ornaments she no longer wants, cheesy canvases that read Live, Laugh, Love – and of course – an embarrassing babyphoto of you in the bath. All of which she expects to see on display when she visits.

Pretty but useless

The kitchen is the heart of the house, but only time you may use one of the many utensils she’s packed is to help grate cheese over your chips, or maybe a jug for that perfect glass of sangria. But besides that, it is all useless.

Unless you want your kitchen transformed into a chef’s paradise you seriously don’t need your mums help. Mums seem to think we’re going to be culinary geniuses, even though there’s hundreds of chipshops and Dominos on speed-dial, she’s fooled herself into thinking you’ve picked up her cooking skills over the last twenty years. Which just hasn’t happened.

Oh and let’s not forget the Cooking for Dummies, or vegetarian equivalent, which just becomes added decor around the flat.

You’re not even going to cook

And it seemed like a great idea when Mum hand-baked a whole load of cute little cupcakes. But freshers just don’t sit around scoffing cakes all day when there’s free pizza at the Student’s Union and a whole new city to explore! The only time it’ll be acknowledged is in a drunken stupor after YOLO. Until then the cakes will sit on the table – for at least a week – because everyone’s too awkward to take that first bite. But by then the cakes are rock hard and become a handy substitute for a ball during beer pong.

No one’s going to eat them

Your mum also seems to think that you’re heading to a rave, not university, as she stuffs condoms, whistles and perhaps even a chastity belt into your bag, declaring they’re for “safety purposes” not debauchery. Little does she know the damning reputation she is packing you off with and the inevitable judgement you will receive from your new housemates. Consequently this is added to the secret stash under your bed, never to be seen again.

Last but certainly not least, parents will buy everything you already have. Candles that you’re forbidden to light will line your window sill, along with some second hand clothes lurking in the bottom of your suitcase.

“Are these mine?”

They could always buy something useful or practical – like a printer cartridge or bedside lamp – but obviously that’s asking far too much.

We love our Mums, and chances are we wouldn’t have made it this far without them, but when it comes to university we only really need them for the big Tesco shop, and a good ol’ trip to Ikea. University is the chance to stand on your own two feet.

And mums need to stop packing us boxes upon boxes of utter shit, and let what will be will be.