Pride and Prejudice

"So, I'm going to drop all my classes except one and work full time."

Huh?

Over the many years I have been a teacher and counselor, I have heard and seen it all.  Well, let me tell you "it all" has a new tenor and shape and color when you hear it from your own child.  Granted, he's not a child, but when I heard that opening sentence - or some approximation of it - from my eldest son I stayed composed.  I listened.  He talked.  I asked a few questions.  Then, I engaged in a wrestling match.

Pride.  Mine - not his - reared its ugly head. And, after a few minutes, the wrestling began.   My son -  who went to college 15 hours away from home; having applied only to that college; having earned four scholarships to help pay for that college; having joined ROTC to continue paying for the out-of-state tuition; for whom I had taken (and am still paying) a parent loan to be at that college - was changing his plan to include much more working than studying.  This kid, for whom I worked in private school for ten years so I could afford tuition so he could get a good education (not always easy to do in Georgia) so he could go to college so he could for all intents and purposes drop out of college?  No.  In my mind you go to college, you get a degree, you get a job, you then...um...work?, then you maybe one day retire in order to enjoy life?  Wow, that fizzled out fast.

In my opening remarks to high school freshmen and their parents, I actually say some version of the fact that high school is not a means to an end.  It is to be enjoyed for its own merits, as is college because if one thing leads to another leads to another and then another, where are we?  We are dead.  Life should be enjoyed.  I enjoyed all seven years of undergraduate and graduate school.  He is not. 

But, my pride suggested that my children should follow the path that I foresaw for them.  A path that I myself trod years ago.  Furthermore, pride suggested that I would look bad if my son didn't stay in college, graduate in four years, and become a productive member of adult society.  I counsel parents whose children want to take a gap year or transfer colleges or take a semester off that, "Everyone has his own path."  I am right.  I am right even and especially when that someone who is creating his own path is my son.  I am right even though I am a college counselor whose job it is to help students find a group of good colleges, apply to them, be accepted to them, and matriculate to them.  Everyone has his own path.

Not "everyone has his own path that his mother needs to approve."  Not "everyone has his own path that should match everyone else's path."  Not "everyone has his own path that is constantly clear and understandable to others."  Everyone has his own path. Period.

If I believe that for the students and families I work with, I have to believe it for my own children as well. I am right.  Life is meant to lived and enjoyed, not suffered through. There is a problem here though: as much as I want him to live and enjoy life, I also want him to be productive.  I want him to have a career or job that he can parlay into a way of living that he wants.  Part of the American parent's dream is that our children have even better jobs and better lives than we have.  We tend to forget that if we really want this, our children may not follow our paths.  They may need to forge into woods with a machete, a muddled transcript, and their own ideas.  They may need to create their own paths without regard for parental pridefulness or prejudice.

My mother used to say, "We don't care what you grow up to be.  If you're going to be a garbage man, just be the best garbage man you can be."  Excel in whatever you do.  My son has embraced the ideas of living, going to college (or not), working, creating his life on his own terms.  I know him.  He will also excel.  On his own terms. 

We all want our children to be happy and successful, but many of us have assigned our own definition of happiness and success to our children. Things are not the same today as they were in 1987 when I was twenty years old.  My son is not me.  Might my pride want him to stay in school full-time and tough things out?  Yes.  But, is that what's best?  Not necessarily.  He is working.  He is taking one class (I think).  He is paying his own bills.  He has an idea of how to move forward on his own terms.  He seems more relaxed and pleased to be making conscious decisions about his own path. If I can't be proud of that, then perhaps it is I who should rethink a few things.

"We're so busy watching out for what's just ahead of us

 that we don't take time to enjoy where we are."

 (credit: Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson)