In middle school, I missed the death of Rio, my betta fish, because I was at a sleepover. My dad broke the news to me as we sat in the car outside of my friend’s house the next morning. I surprised him by shedding a tear (the death was long coming), yet I remember feeling a sense of guilt for not being there when Rio finally succumbed to the fin rot that had been plaguing him for months. By contrast, I also felt guilty for not actually feeling regret for sleeping at my friend’s house while Rio passed on into the next world. That was the moment I discovered the power of the sleepover.
In elementary school, early October was when my best friend would send out her annual slumber party invitations in the mail. Needless to say, October was my favorite month of the year. I distinctly remember one year’s pink-and-green, spa-themed birthday card tacked to the front of the kitchen fridge and the anticipation of counting down the days to the big night. Year to year, activities changed from basking our feet in Orbeez spas to pinning tails on a life-sized One Direction cut-out, and I would stay up until I felt too exhausted to fight my impending sleep.
As we got older and parent involvement lessened, sleepovers became more casual. Days of choreographed dances and songs as a desperate plea to our parents to be permitted to stay the night together faded into last-minute text messages informing our moms that we wouldn’t be home until morning. With this spontaneity came a less structured packing list. Gone were the Bring-Your-Own pillows and sleeping bags. Instead, we borrowed pajamas and squeezed ourselves haphazardly into shared beds and couches.
While the nature of my nights evolved from obstacle courses and hours of FailArmy YouTube videos to late nights out, the essence of sleepovers stayed constant from elementary school through high school. The thrill of gossiping into the wee hours of the morning and groggily waking up alongside each other still remained.
Sleepovers are widely considered to be a rite of passage and a way for children to experience independence in a controlled environment. As an overnight guest, they are forced to adapt to an unfamiliar routine, allowing them to practice self-advocacy and learn social boundaries. Yet parents are becoming more and more wary about the environment they are sending their kids into, with rising concerns about gun safety, alcohol and sexual assault often preventing parents from bearing to part with their children for the night.
If this trajectory of wariness continues, fewer and fewer children will experience the classic and beloved sleepover. They will miss out not only on stepping out of their comfort zone, but also forming lifelong memories and deepening their platonic relationships. But I’d argue that if these children go to college and live in a residence hall, they will almost make up for all of their missed years with what feels like a four-year-long sleepover.
For my freshman year of college at the University of Michigan, I decided to enter “blind” and let the University pair me with a random roommate. This meant that for my first year of living away from home, in a new state at a new school, I fell asleep and woke up to the same random girl from Rochester Hills. Despite only chance bringing us together, our friendship came naturally and felt like an inevitable result of sharing a small space during such a pivotal time in our lives. While the deluge of roommate horror stories tells me this is an exception, she is now my best friend.
Returning from a late night of studying or a night out, I’d scramble onto my awkwardly half-lofted twin bed, impatiently wait for sleep to come and express the thoughts that popped into my head, blurting them out into the air between us. Gossiping about the day we had and the day that lay ahead until the first of us drifted off (usually her), I could almost imagine that we were under a blanket fort in my living room, sleeping over, but on a school night (which is where my parents previously drew the line).
The residence hall and communal bathrooms also contributed to this feeling. Running into people while brushing my teeth, or bumping into my down-the-hall friend on my way to the shower and promptly sliding to the floor to chit chat, plans temporarily abandoned, I would feel the thrill of October in elementary school again. The melding of spheres, of class friends in the bathroom and strangers on the other side of very thin walls, was disorienting to adjust to, but quickly became comforting. But, as I no longer live in the dormitory, I worry I will keep drifting further and further away from this utopia of communal living.
However, it doesn’t have to be this way just yet. Sororities, with all they may and may not represent for people, undeniably offer the promise of the ultimate girl sleepover. LSA sophomore Emma Lau, a sister of Delta Delta Delta, has spent her second year of college living with about 60 other girls in the Delta Delta Delta house, a number that puts all of my slumber parties to shame. However, the live-in experience was not initially something she was planning on. Having been convinced to abandon her previously signed lease in favor of living in the sorority house, she has since completely changed her mindset.
She shares a room with her sorority sisters, but this space is divided into a room reserved for sleeping — no talking allowed — and a room for socializing, packed with their desks and a shared daybed. The separation allows for a sense of privacy, an escape from the eternal sleepover.
In fact, for someone who was initially against the co-living aspect of her sorority, she has fully acclimated to a house full of girls. Her favorite part is the birthday celebrations, as all the girls gather at midnight to commemorate the occasion. She says that living in the sorority house has made her realize “an unadulterated love” for her friends.
“I didn’t know it was important to me until I had it,” Lau said. That is the power sleepovers have on friendships.
College is a unique time during which communal living and sleepovers are attainable.
“I think my relationship with going back home and sleeping in my own bed is so different now because I kind of have this withdrawal and anxiety because it’s so quiet and there’s nothing going on,” Lau said.
After graduation, that is what many of us will be doing for the rest of our lives. Perhaps there will be roommates, but never again will we be college-aged, with our college-aged friends, in our college apartments — our social, academic and professional spheres so perfectly aligned. I fear the isolation that comes with friends in different states and the formal arrangement of social plans when I am used to casually returning to my friends after a long day of classes.
According to The Ezra Klein Show, our society is structured to value romantic love over platonic love. Families move to suburbs to rear their children, even if that means distancing themselves from their individual friends. Yes, it feels ridiculous to suggest parents leave their homes to sleepover at their friends’ houses. Yet, NPR’s Rhaina Cohen and her husband have been living with her friends and their children for almost two and a half years now. While that does mean living with children and their mayhem, she says, “It is so much easier to overweight the negatives of the unconventional decisions and to overlook the negatives of the conventional decision.”
Since exiting dormitory-style living, I have already given up some sleepovers due to the increasing complexities of logistics. Last year, I envisioned many shared sleepless nights with the friends I would no longer live in the same building with. Yet, I find that I will go to great lengths to return to my bed so that I can prepare myself to start the next day of classes and activities afresh. I will walk a mile from a friend’s house in Kerrytown in the darkness of the night to save myself the journey the next day.
Even when visiting home, I have noticed a subtle change. I treasure the continued tradition of weekend trips with my friends even more, as we spend every waking and sleeping moment together after months of separation. Yet, when we are all in our home neighborhood, the sleepover eludes us. When 1 a.m. strikes, we will often disperse, carpooling back to our own beds to relinquish peace for the night. If younger me found out about this, she would despair. As it is, it almost slipped my attention.
Weirdly, I think our reluctance to sleepover is due to the time crunch of school break and the pressure to make every day off count. With limited days at home, a sleepover sometimes feels like too much of a sacrifice. In earlier years, the come-down and inevitable exhaustion of the following day was the reasonable price to pay for an epic night, yet with sometimes only a couple days at most, I’ve come to consider my obligations to my pets, family and bed.
However, the loss of the sleepover is the conventional decision. Despite waking up in my own bed, I lose out on the intimate experiences from my childhood. As summer internships turn into jobs and beaus turn into husbands, I want to actively hold onto platonic sleepovers as they get harder to coordinate. Sleepovers are an opportunity to live a friend’s life for the night, to hear their thoughts right before they fall asleep, to see what they are like when they wake up, so that even as we live and grow apart, I always know them.
Statement Columnist Molly Goldwasser can be reached at gomolly@umich.edu.