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)

Volunteers or Victims?

(credit:  The Onion, September 30, 2013)

When was the last time you volunteered for something?  I have to say:  it’s been a while.  Many of the people by whom I am surrounded, however, spend a great number of hours volunteering.  They mentor children; they organize used eyeglass drives; they repair homes of the disadvantaged; they sing at nursing homes; they collect umbrellas for the homeless; they organize fun runs to benefit, well, to benefit anyone who needs benefiting.  I am talking about volunteerism among teenagers.  Around our school and others like it, volunteering is not a sign of altruism among the privileged or concerned young people of our nation.  I want to be able to tell you that the young generation that I work with on a daily basis is actively concerned with inequities and despair around them.  I cannot.  However, I can tell you that they are very concerned with their college applications and how they appear. 

The majority of the teens with whom I have interacted over the years have simply been interested in benefiting themselves through volunteering or creating various do-good endeavors.  When I ask a high-schooler about such an activity that appears on their activities list for college, I am often met with a blank stare.  I go on to say, “You know, the three charity drives you sponsored to raise money for homeless children’s school supplies?”  “Oh, right. Yeah, well, my mom kind of made me do that.” 

Say what?  While I might have thought that this is a local issue, a few years ago the College Board actually had a synthesis essay question that asked high school juniors in Advanced Placement Language and Composition to read six documents and formulate a coherent argument for or against required volunteering.  Required volunteering?  Like jumbo shrimp or efficient bureaucracy?  A paradox, surely. 

There is a question on more than one college application that asks, in all seriousness, “Does your school require service hours for graduation?”  Required volunteering.  Have we devolved so far that service and volunteering must be foisted upon young people, upon old people…upon anyone?  There seems to always be a contingent of people in the community for whom service is a calling.  They volunteer because they are so moved.  I suspect the argument is that young people won’t learn the value of such service without some kind of requirement.  Perhaps.

But, like any people, young people get so much more out of activities they enjoy.  Maybe their time is taken with three varsity sports a year.  Maybe they are on the main stage throughout the school year.  And, perhaps, they are the kind of student that really needs every minute to keep up in school.  But, there are those whose true calling service, and I believe that should be honored, not forced.  We don’t force students to perform on the stage; neither are students forced to go out for varsity sports, so why are we taking something that is intrinsically rewarding and assigning extrinsic value to it? 

Teachers and parents and motivational speakers tell our young people to follow their passions, and many of us strive to that same thing in our own lives.  I have an acquaintance for whom the local food bank is a focus of his free time.  It is not for me, but I’m happy to bring in some donations when our school does the food barrels.  I have a friend who sponsors a Girls on the Run group; I could not begin to run with a group of middle school girls, but I am happy to buy a treat or ticket to support the group.  Just as we adults find our own ways to contribute to our communities, perhaps we should encourage our students and children to do the same.

I am happy to report that by and large the cartoon from “The Onion” is hyperbole.  We see more of such swindling from our adult population, as in the Farmingdale man who solicited funds door-to-door for a fake MS charity this past summer, and last year when a couple plead not guilty to falsely claiming their daughter had cancer and raising funds for her fake medical care. Let our students be who they are:  the athlete, the artist, the mathematician, the fundraiser, the writer, and the performer.  Let’s not try to make everyone a little bit of everything.  We all have our strengths and interests; if we quit insisting that our young people be and do everything, we encourage authenticity for al,l and we might just feel a little better about ourselves along the way.