Stepping Onto the College Hamster Wheel

Truth Thursday

I have just returned from the back-to-school night I have been dreading for years – the one with the opening meeting for parents of high school juniors. It’s the crunch year, they tell us, the one that counts. The one with PSATs, SAT prep, SATs, AP classes, critical grades, enormous pressure and the beginning of our teen’s long march out the door.

We have been preparing for this since the day he was born. 

I'm reminded of feeling wholly inadequate when I attended my new mommy classes, and most of the moms in the class had babies who were a month or two older than my 5-week-old son.  They seemed to know what they were doing. At least they had babies who had figured out how to latch on (I’ll save my nursing horror stories for another post. Or perhaps not.)

They all seemed to have an equanimity with their babies that I lacked. When the facilitator talked about baby proofing the house, I thought I would throw up. How could I be expected to know how to do that! But she assured us that when the time came, we would be ready for it. It was simply another developmental stage, and babies are calibrated in such a way that somehow or another, you are indeed ready when the time comes for a change.

And so it has gone throughout my son’s young life.

So here I am, standing in the midst of scores of first-time parents of juniors, and I’m wondering if my deer-in-the-headlights feeling is showing. Everyone else seems to be nodding with understanding. Everyone else seems to be writing things down. Everyone else seems to have their child’s top three college choices already noted.

But not really. Even though the mom I was sitting next to had her child’s schedule sitting on top of her papers, and even though I couldn't help but notice that her child is taking four (FOUR!) AP classes, as well as calculus as a junior, and even though my child is only on the honors track and actually dropped one of his two AP classes because it was too hard, even though I am feeling pretty inadequate, I know that it will be alright.

I know this because we have reached an appropriate developmental stage, and somehow or another, just as has happened before, we will be ready to rise and greet it.

In fact, we will be more than ready to greet it.  My husband and I have had both the challenge and the good fortune to be the parents of a child who, from a very young age, didn’t want to play by the rules -- at least not the rules of the suburban, upwardly mobile middle class, high achieving community in which we live. Around the age of 12, our son started to fumble in school, acting up for a couple of years and then having the grades to show for it. He quit team sports when he was 10, it just not being the right milieu for him. He has not joined any extracurricular activities at school. He doesn’t have a clear academic interest (although history and social studies is finally emerging as a favorite.) He did not make it into any of the magnet programs held in such high esteem in our community, mainly because he had no interest in trying.  

On the other hand, he loves to work. He has been working as an assistant teacher at our synagogue for four years, and has the respect of his colleagues and students. He has the uncanny ability to speak easily and respectfully with adults, even as a garden variety 16-year-old boy, a talent that serves him well. He made a conscious choice to work this past summer, passing up a fun trip abroad, because he wanted to earn both money and experience. And he worked hard, holding down an internship with a great organization and several paying jobs helping neighbors with tasks around their homes. And yes, he even has a newspaper route. 

He now tells me he wants to major in business. 

And, perhaps most importantly of all, he has, since he entered middle school, been truly the master of his fate. He has made all the decisions about what classes to take, and has taken charge of any changes or alterations that needed to be made. He also takes his work responsibilities very seriously, insisting that we are not to interfere with his work or bosses in any way. If he has chosen not to do his homework (thankfully no longer an issue), or somehow manages to miss work, he takes the lumps that go with it.

Over time, we learned not to ask, not to nag. We learned to trust that he would make decisions, right or wrong, and accept the consequences. These were the hardest parenting lessons I ever learned.

And tonight, at the parents meeting of college-bound juniors at the high school, all my years of parenting this child in this somewhat out-of-the-mainstream way were vindicated. Because, as the guidance counselors said to the deer-in-headlights parents, we will no longer rush to answer your emails, for we want your children to be the ones taking charge of the (college application) process. If they don’t have the personal skills and ability to manage their school schedule and all the attendant issues related to applying to college, and if they can’t reach out to us and discuss their needs and their questions, then they have a serious problem.

And there, in that cramped room, overflowing with parents eager to get on the stick and start writing their children’s college applications, I knew I had done my job. My son is ready to start the process. It will be his process, his thinking, his decisions. We will provide the support we always have and whatever guidance he will allow. But ultimately, his success or failure getting into college will rest on his shoulders. Grades, essays, standardized tests, applications – we can provide a helpful hand, but these will be his to process, his to manage, his to win or lose. 

Parenting is not a zero-sum game. There are no right answers, and every child’s needs and every family's needs are different. Every parent must do what he or she feels is right in his or her heart. But one thing I do know is that my child’s life is his own, and that I think I have given him the support and encouragement to make important choices about that life.

We've reached another developmental milestone – right on time, just like baby proofing. The only difference is that the consequences grow greater with age.

So we now face the largest milestone yet with the potential to have enormous impact on our son’s future … wish me luck. But I think we’re ready.

 

 Photo by Sean McEntee via Flickr

 

 

 

 

Comments

[Linda Keely]

I don't think you need luck -- I believe your love, encouragement, support, and empowerment will payoff. Maybe not this year or the next, though certainly in years to come.

[Elissa Oshinsky]

Relax and it will be fine! I believe in taking a step back in the whole process.
Your son needs your gentle guidance. Be strong and don't let the insanity of
the college process overwhelm you. It will be FINE!

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