I spent the Saturday night of my last homecoming weekend at college tucking six kids into sleeping bags on the floor of my off-campus house.

College isn’t just an opportunity to gain independence — it’s pushed me to grow into a strong adult relationship with my family. Students should lean into their relationships with their families as much as possible during college. They’re the only people you can count on seeing consistently after graduation, and they know you in a way that your college friends never will. 

When I was in high school and told people that Hillsdale College was my top choice, they asked if I was worried that it was too close to home. They wondered if I would have enough distance from my family to “become my own person.”

The hour-and-a-half drive from Hillsdale to Ypsilanti is blessedly short, and it makes a weekend visit or an afternoon Bloody Mary with my dad very doable. But I’m not just a short drive from my parents’ house. My second cousins go to St. Anthony of Padua Catholic Church, my grandparents and some of my first cousins live 40 minutes away in Quincy and Union City, and my mom’s large extended family spans the area surrounding Hillsdale. 

I’ve never felt like I’m too close to family, but I have been grateful for the opportunity to help my cousin practice her cheerleading stunts, go out to dinner with my grandparents after a piano concert, and make it home for baptisms and birthday parties. Most recently, it gave me the chance to host my siblings and a few cousins on my living room floor for homecoming weekend. That hasn’t prevented me from growing. 

People say the friends you form in college are the friends you’ll have for life. That’s often true. Some of your college roommates will likely be your bridesmaids and the godparents to your children. But after graduation, many college friends will live halfway across the country. Others will simply have much different lives, and you’ll fall out of touch, not because that’s your intention but because that’s the way of things.

Your family members deserve priority. They’ve made you who you are. The cousin who gave you life advice and the great-aunt who disciplined you for hitting your brother shaped you. College-you should thank them for that. For me, that looked like spending homecoming weekend cutting apples and cheese for hungry kids and ending arguments about who got to sleep on the couch.

You might not be close to every relative, but you will see them at baby showers, Christmas parties, and funerals. When you need help, they’ll give it. The odds are that you’re closer with them than you expect because you share grandparents, family recipes, and memories of the same events.

Staying close with your family members might just look like calling your grandma and telling her that you’re thriving, that the boba at Penny’s is great, and that you made friends with a freshman in your philosophy class. Or it could mean attending a wedding for a cousin that you don’t know very well rather than spending a weekend with friends.

Sacrificing a few college experiences so that you can make it to family events and spending time on a Sunday writing letters to your younger siblings builds strong families and happy people.

Put time into developing adult relationships with your family members. Next time you have a free 20 minutes, give your grandma a call.

Francesca Cella is a senior studying English.