The College Years

Decided to tackle the college years. Our third child is in his senior year so I think there is considerable experience racked up regarding this phase in child rearing. Last week I heard the tail end of a radio interview featuring one of those "life coaches" who helps teens get into their college of choice. The price tag really made an impression. It costs $14 thousand dollars to coach a teen. I must confess a certain attitude when it comes to life coaches. I believe that you can get the same results from relying on friends and family members to offer advice and cheer you on in your goals. But the life coach gets a lot of money for the same efforts and who can blame them for charging. (Of course, I am a therapist and charge people for my services. I will write a blog later on about how my profession is different from friendship.) But, back to the theme of the day. Maybe people are more likely to take the advice if they have to pay for it. After all, one would hate to waste all that money spent on advice. Even if you find every word irrelevant or not anything you would want or need to do. Anyways, this whole concept of paying someone to help your kid get into the very best college is a reflection on the baby boomer's competitive nature regarding child rearing which involves raising a child who functions at superior levels which then reflects upon the superior child rearing abilities of the baby boomer parent. This focus on raising a superior child is capped off by the child attending a much sought after school. Preferably ivy league costing bucket loads of money. The more expensive, the more the parent can sigh and shake their head about financing their child's education. How did parents get so involved in their children's college admission process?

Here is my confession about my own college admission process. My parents laid down one rule. The college of my choice had to be within two hours driving range from our home. Other than that, live it up. That was one of my father's favorite phrases. I had a brief conversation with the high school guidance counselor who seemed bored, but happy to hand me information on the two biggest state colleges in Michigan. My grades and SAT scores were good enough to get into both schools. I did not visit either college. My boyfriend at the time had decided to attend the University of Michigan. The other college was Michigan State. Nicknamed "Moo U" if that gives you any indication of its reputation. It began as an agricultural college. I completed both applications. No essay or teacher recommendations were required. My decision making process was this: which ever college invited me first would be the college who got me. Although U of M had the shinier reputation and my boyfriend at the time was going there, I liked the idea of being an organization's early pick. Well, the rest is history because I met my husband Craig the first week at school and, as a result of this meeting, broke up with my boyfriend. Besides that I got a pretty good education and it only cost $9 thousand dollars for four years.

On the other hand, the college admission process for my three kids was a huge production. It involved essays, recommendations, reams of applications, rating colleges by sure thing, almost sure thing and reaching for the stars. Each application cost $50. There were decisions about early admission which meant a commitment to the college that welcomed you in December rather than the traditional following April. This process generally started during the Junior year and there was an expectation to visit as many colleges as possible. College visits really are just another way to create even more tension and wedge distance between parents and their teen. Want to witness disgust in its most exquisite state? Attend a college walk through and presentation. The other time one can witness similar emotional angst is the day parents move their freshman into the college dorm. All those years of superior child rearing for one of the unhappiest days of your life.

I want to write about my personal experience as a parent who helped their children during the college admission process. Each child's experiences were incredibly different. I attribute those differences to their unique personalities and my own growth as a parent. Or from sheer exhaustion. This is an opportunity for my own children to comment on the process. The next blog will address my hard earned wisdom on college admission. Ok so it may not be wisdom, my own smart aleck opinions on the whole damn thing.

The Blog Block

It has been five weeks since the last entry. I have blog block. My mind is a blank when it comes to ideas about parenting. So, good writers, profilic writers, say write anyways. Even if you have not one interesting thing to say. I will write about the block. What is going on? Could it be that living with my parent, my mother, has erased everything I know about my own parenting! Before writing further about the block, I must comment on the ease of writing on the library computer which has DSL. We don't have DSL. Before we ever get DSL, I am hoping that we will have a wood burning furnace, solar panels and an invigorated composting system. Then we will deserve DSL. Just like we deserve direct tv which we have right now.

What is the effect of living with one's parent? In many ways, Craig and I have been parenting my mom. She arrived five weeks ago. She walked down the long hallway in the Burlington airport having just come off a flight from Orlando. She had most of her belongings with her. The rest had been mailed a few weeks prior during the week after my brother's death. Mom was homeless. She was in debt and she was in deep grief. She was starting her life over at the age of 80. But here is the wonderful thing about mom. She has a photographic memory which I did not inherit. She memorized the computer keyboard in one day. She bought a laptop computer and has a g-mail account. She delights in this new- to- her technology that opens a world of communication to her and her friends and family. She has partial vision but is able to use most of our appliances, manage the stairs and walk around the property. She is not afraid of the bears. Initially, me and the siblings were concerned about mom's ability to adapt and move on. We thought of mom as fragile. That is so far from what has happened. Mom is made of steel and she is highly adaptive.

Ok, so here is the lesson that I think is our strength as parents. In spite of our own fears, doubts, weaknesses, we love to see our children develop their independence (and mom's too). We are big on learning. Learning skills, learning for the sake of learning. Did you know that you can learn anything from a book? This brings me to a big exception, and yes, I know there are others. Learning to drive. I was a complete failure at teaching and encouraging the children to drive. I literally could hardly loosen my own grip from the steering wheel of the car to let my children practice. I was deathly afraid of being in a car crash. Erica does not own a car and has used public transportation for the past 8 years. The same with Tommy. This is actually a good thing not a direct result of driving phobia. Chris on the other hand is driving the Vibe in Los Angeles. Now that is what I call exposure therapy. And I mean for me. Just knowing he is driving in LA traffic is forcing me to overcome my horrible phobia which is really not about me driving but my children driving. Or letting my children drive me around. Someone must have written a book about teaching/encouraging your adolescent child to drive. It should be called "Teaching your Child to drive for Dummies" or in my case "paranoid nitwits".

Kahlil Gibran wrote about giving your children roots and wings. I think we aspired to do that with our children and my mom. Sometimes you need the roots and sometimes the wings. I love it that the children, young adults now, do the following: travel, work (and are not picky about jobs if that is what is available), cook, clean their own habitat, have many wonderful, interesting friends, create art, play music, are romantic and affectionate, read, write and learn. They are independent and rooted. They come home. They leave. I miss them.