Being a broke college student isn’t easy. It involves living paycheck to paycheck, being in constant stress of whether five and a half inches is big enough and above all—relying on your parents’ unconditional love and support from afar. 

Recently, however, you may have noticed your dad isn’t being as friendly with his checkbook or perhaps you noticed your mom stopped sending name brand food in the care package. You’re not crazy for noticing this, in fact the answer to why this is happening is quite simple: your parents just don’t love you as much as they used to.

Ever since you left home to either come back to college or move away for the first time, things have changed. With you out of the picture at home, your dad is finally able to take his new girlfriend to the Bahamas. Sure the new girl is dangerously close to your sister’s age and filled with way too much energy for your dad, but he doesn’t care. 

Your dad has been dealing with you every other weekend and pretending to care about baseball every summer for the last 18-ish years. With a new girlfriend to take care of and a much too expensive car to balance in his ledger, there just simply isn’t room in his life to care about whether or not you eat every day.

Your mom will always be more soft on you, you do have her eyes after all. She has spent the years since the divorce scrolling through pictures of your dad’s new fling just waiting for her time to exact revenge. What better way to do that than to send you a couple extra dollars a month? That money is going to come with a price because you have to be sure to let your dad know who the better parent is at Christmas time or the deal is off. The money your mother sends isn’t out of love, it’s out of spite. 

You need to be wary of the dirty money you’re getting into and be warned that the piles of cash will run out. Your mom and the gals have been racking up the happy hour bills since you left but the credit limit can only go so far. Did you really expect that your mother’s ideal life was washing your semen infested underwear and falling asleep before 9 p.m. every night? Get real kid. She’s going to start living her life, not yours.

Mom and dad will always love you, just slightly less than before. You used to be so innocent and cute but now you’re just a devilish young adult trying to live off of OnlyFans subscriptions. They did their part and kept you alive the last couple of decades but now it’s time to do yours. Strap in, pull the blinders of childhood off and realize it’s a mean world and love is often limited. There will always be 28-year-old step moms and fresh margaritas so you better get used to your spot on the totem pole, at least until your parents’ dementia sets in.