Angelina Jolie’s oldest son, Maddox, is off to college now. Maddox turned 18 on August 5. He and his ma are in South Korea this week as she dropped him off on campus at Yonsei University. She and Maddox were seen togetherin Seoul last Novemberwhen they spent time touring schools while she was also on assignment with the UNHCR. It was confirmed a few weeks ago that Maddox would indeed pursue post-secondary education opportunities overseas. And now the day has come – Angelina, like so many parents the last few weeks, is sending her first kid to college.
In this video, she jokes that she’s trying not to cry:
I have a friend who sent her daughter off to pre-school for the first day yesterday for two hours and cried. For the first time, Angelina’s son is living on his own, beginning his adult life, with experiences independent of her. It’s a big day, a day made even more surreal by her fame. She’s basically being interviewed by other students and what I love here is that Maddox is all like, yeah, this is what happens when my mother is around, casual. You’ll note though that Angelina’s her own publicist. She’s the one suggesting to the crowd that they take one photo to be shared by everyone instead of having every person get their own shot on their own phone. Ordinarily they have handlers who do that.
As for what it will be like for Maddox at university and whether or not he’ll be a curiosity – maybe for the first week or two? And then, in my experience being around teenagers and young adults, and there are several of them in my life, they don’t give a sh-t about parents and whoever because they are too absorbed in themselves. And then when you factor the geography into the situation, this is probably the ideal setup for Maddox to get as he continues to figure out who he is and what he wants to do.
The question for Angelina is… how much can she disconnect? Is she the kind of college mom who asks for a scheduled once a week Facetime? How often will she visit? Will she bring the family to him in South Korea for Thanksgiving? Will she set up an apartment in Seoul so she can be nearby as much as possible? Or will she give him his space? Who is Angelina Jolie, college mom?
