Recently, I spoke with a Mom who is deeply concerned about how she’s handling a difficult situation with her 11th grader. Her instinct is telling her one thing but she’s considering alternate options, possibly going a different route.
As she talked, I recalled two situations when my parenting instincts were correct, but I only followed one and caved to the other.
The first tale: When my twins were in 11th grade and my youngest was a high school freshman, nearly all the sports Moms were placing their kids in a program that met once a week to have the kids build hard-copy portfolios, in a binder, to help them get into the college they really wanted.
My first question: Why a binder? That’s archaic when high schoolers create online, professional portfolios and personal websites for everything. And, universities aren’t looking at hardcopy papers.
An overwhelming number of women approached me saying it was “so worth it”. When I say “worth”, I’m talking time, not money. High school athletes have limited time and part time jobs.
After being incessantly urged to go, I dragged two girlfriends and our brood of teenagers to check it out.
Upon entering, this woman many claimed a guru of college entrance wisdom was at a full-on messy table, eating sandwiches with a couple other teens and spent the next twenty-five minutes cleaning her space and setting up a new folding table. Every surface around this woman was a paper-filled disaster. I couldn’t think straight just looking at the disorganization.
The meeting was to start at 7pm. She meandered around until 7:30pm while a large group of us waited against a wall. She eventually spewed drivel that as a college educator myself for 20-years knew was nonsense.
When the sales pitch was through, I looked at my two friends and said out loud with sarcasm, “so, what did you think of that?” Exactly at the same time, I said, “no way” while the other two in sync said, “absolutely”. Their resolve was so strong, I honestly thought I was being too “me” (i.e. particular, type-A, not-giving-things-a-chance) and reluctantly agreed.
This turned out to be a colossal waste of my twins’ time.
I was a cautious Mom. Mostly because I didn’t have many role models to pull from, and a childhood starkly different from my kids’. So, I questioned myself often. I prayed and then moved forward. My husband and I also balanced each other out, him being significantly less-cautious!
In this college-entrance-workshop instance, I knew better, went against my instincts and that was unwise. In tomorrow’s more serious “second tale”, I followed my instincts. (I’m posting separately so the posts remain short).
Thank you for reading and I wish you a very good start to this new week.
Featured image: source
Tales from a Mid-Lifer 
Leave a reply to shoreacres Cancel reply