One thing that Jonathan Peterson, a second-year PhD student in materials science, misses from home is his dad\u2019s \u201ckiller pancakes.\u201d Although he has tried to make them himself, he said they are never quite the same.\u00a0<\/p>\n
What if his parents paid a local mom to make him his dad\u2019s pancakes for his birthday?<\/p>\n
Campus Mom, a college concierge company founded by Monteigne Long and Karen Allen in 2023, offers this service to students living alone for the first time, far from their parents.<\/p>\n
\u201cBirthdays are a big part of our business,\u201d Long said. \u201cWhen parents can\u2019t be here for their student\u2019s birthday, we are the ones to deliver the cake and the balloon bouquet.\u201d<\/p>\n
Currently based in College Station, Texas and serving Texas A&M and surrounding campuses, Campus Mom will soon expand to Austin, Long said. Even though he does not think he would pay for college concierge mom services, Peterson said he sees how this service can help students who are just starting to adjust to adult life.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think I\u2019ve gotten to the point where I\u2019m pretty good at handling it myself,\u201d Peterson said.<\/p>\n
Campus Mom also offers wellness visits, including looking after a sick student, delivering prescriptions and conducting holistic wellness check-ins with the student on how they are adjusting to campus life so far.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe can check in with them to see how they\u2019re doing academically, personally, socially,\u201d Long said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Long and Allen said they draw on their years of experience working in higher education to connect students with resources that will make their lives easier. However, that does not exempt students from their responsibilities, Long said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are not gonna do anybody\u2019s laundry for them,\u201d Long said.<\/p>\n
She said while they do not provide cleaning or cooking services, they can connect students with other local businesses that offer them. UT parent Bharti Gupta, whose son is a freshman, said this assistance is unnecessary.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat\u2019s going to be next? Are we going to have concierge moms at work?\u201d Gupta said. \u201cIt\u2019s creating a society that\u2019s going to be more dependent, as opposed to one that\u2019s independent and solves problems.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gupta said she began teaching her son to be independent while he was in high school. By removing the ability for students to work through their own problems, she said students will not learn how to be a productive member of society.<\/p>\n
Still, demand for Campus Mom services is growing, Long said. Allen and Long said they have about 50 clients. Their clients are mostly girls with increasing interest in their sorority recruitment packages, but their Halloween celebration Boo Basket is also becoming popular among boys, Allen said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe students are so receptive that it\u2019s like seeing your child at their best,\u201d Allen said. \u201cSometimes it\u2019s like seeing them when they\u2019re really down, when you really wanna make it better.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One thing that Jonathan Peterson, a second-year PhD student in materials science, misses from home is his dad\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":454100,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[132,134,133],"class_list":["post-454099","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-austin","tag-austin","tag-austin-headlines","tag-austin-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/454099","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=454099"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/454099\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/454100"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=454099"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=454099"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=454099"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}