Kelly Ripa wants you to know she’s just like every mom and dad when they send their child off to college. Her and husband Mark Consuelos are dealing with the struggles that every first-year college student’s parents have to go through.
The two dropped their daughter, Lola Consuelos, off at college over the weekend at New York University. She shared an Instagram post embracing her daughter with the caption, “The nest is getting roomy.” To which her husband responded, “2 down… 1 to go.” The couple also has a son in college.
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Turns out, maybe living with one less child won’t be as easy as they thought. Ripa sat down in an interview with On Air with Ryan Seacrest on Tuesday where she opened up about what she’s dealing with as her daughter begins her college career.
“College is where you start establishing yourself as an independent person, so when you send your kid goes off to college and your kid stays local … if she feels homesick, I have to say to her, ‘You can’t come home. You have to work it out,’” she began. “I treat it [like long-distance]. I did the same thing for my son. ‘You’re going to have to figure it out.’ My main concern was, ‘I don’t know if you should be this close to home because I don’t want you using home like it’s your home. I want this to be your experience.’”
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Further in the interview, she shares with Seacrest how she always wanted one of her kids to go to school on the west coast. Both of her children attend New York University.
The New Jersey native said she wants to have a Thanksgiving on the west coast one day, which means all of her hope lies in her youngest son, Joaquin who is 16.
She does believe Lola will adjust well to living in a dorm with multiple girls. Having grown up a city kid, Ripa told Seacrest she’s used to operating in tight spaces.
“The thing is, I think New York City kids are used to having not a lot of space so she’s already OK with that, but the bathroom is going to be [hard],” Ripa joked.
