Mid-CenturyModernMoms

Nerds Rule!

By Nina

I saw it with my own eyes at every single HS reunion I've attended. The nerdiest most unlikely to "succeed" kids inevitably ended up being the coolest, realest and most interesting ones at the party.

Somehow the mean alpha girls just got meaner and smaller.  The cheerleaders got fat.  The grinds had been ground down by life.  But a lot of the nose picking, pocket protector, AV Squad boys and nerdy girls were the ones who'd cashed out their dot.com businesses and were now pursuing their bliss, sailing sloops around the world, taking on second careers, shepherding foundations, that sort of stuff. Even Marsha Miller, who was so horsey she practically whinnied, had turned into a way-cool art gallery owner in the Bay Area. 

No surprise learning that a high school A-lister like Robby Benjamin went to med school, made a lot of money, retired early to Florida and was proudly wearing his trophy 2nd wife on his arm.  But whoa, let's hear it for Geek-O-Rama Marty Tessler, who went to med school the hard way, after being a Physician's Assistant for 7 years and then chose Emergency Room medicine in a hospital in Queens.  Way to go dude!  You may not be making the big bucks, but you've earned my respect and I bet you feel good looking in the mirror every morning.

So while I wish my own nearly 16-year-old geek in residence had a more robust social life and was feeling a little higher up on the high school food chain, I try to remember that being a tech nerd often means having the last laugh. 

My kid is a tech assistant this summer before he leaves for Israel.  He's helping to install new computers in the new building at his school . . . and he's getting paid for it!  He's enjoying the radical paradigm shift as he works with the school's resident technology staff who are (gasp) Republicans and Libertarians, unlike the mushy skwushy  liberals who teach at his crunchy granola private school.  This week his reputation as a nice reliable kid who knows his way around Macintosh computers landed him an off-site gig at the home of one of the school's two college advisers. There he successfully installed a Wi-Fi network and in the process got on the radar of the person who is going to help him navigate the rocky shoals of college applications.  And he got $100 smackeroos. 

Like I said.  Nerds rule.

Packing Season

T'is the season.... for packing them up and shipping 'em out.

Abe (PDD, NVLD, etc.) just received word that he is going to start at C next week.  C is a residential, therapeutic school.  From the outside, C would make a wonderful bed and breakfast since most of the buildings are on the historic register.  Their brochure talks about horse back riding and swimming and trips to Europe.  But underneath that, serious emotional and academic work goes on (although Abe is starting for the summer program).

    

I really can't imagine my slob of a son living in such an elegant place, but time will tell.

In any event, I have to get him packed to move over there.  It's a cross between packing for camp and packing for college.  For camp, you send totally grungy clothes that you don't care when they get lost, but for college you assume that the clothes will make it through the year, but probably some still get lost.  And of course, Mom is the one doing all of the packing because 17 year old boys can't be bothered.  The only thing that Abe will pick out to bring are his electronics and his books.  Mom gets to (needs to) get everything else together, label it, pack it and make sure that it gets shlepped over to school.

Rose, on the other hand at 14, will be going to camp for 2 months towards the end of the month.  Everything needs to be "just so" for her.  She makes all of the decisions on what to bring and it's waaaayy more than Mom thinks should be to camp.

Rosie whines "Mom, come help me pack...." but really she just wants approval on her choices.  Mom isn't really allowed to make any decisions on what to bring, but the mom is allowed to iron on labels, fold the clothes and place them into the suitcase and duffel bag.

Two kids, two totally different packing strategies. But the  net result is going to be several weeks of details then lots of quiet around the house.  I'm looking forward to the relaxation, but then I get to start worrying about how Abe is going to handle the program at C.  But that's another story.

One from Column A, one from Column B...

Off we go into the wild blue yonder.....  Oops, wrong song, but the right thought.  However, I do feel that I'm entering a brave new world.  We've been looking at some residential schools for Abe (17.5 yo, PDD, ADHD, NVLD...) and I'd really like it if I could pick aspects on one and combine it with aspects of the second school to make a perfect fit for all of us.  And then there are schools 3 and 4, yet to be seen.

So far, we've gone to see 2 schools, D and P.  Both of which are north-west of where we live and 45 minutes (P) or 1.2 hours (D) away.  So they are NOT close.  We are also going to see another 2, and these are in the opposite direction, 1 to 1.5 hours away (C or M).  Maybe one of these schools will be perfect as is, then again, probably not.

In any event, I feel MUCH more comfortable with this idea  of sending Abe away, as does he.  After actually seeing the schools, I realize that there had been dark thoughts of British boarding schools and penitentary settings running rampant in the back of my brain.  These are nothing like that.

Either of the first 2 schools are acceptable, but, oh, if I could combine them in the magic mixing machine....  Maybe I'll get Willie Wonka involved in the school selection.

THE WIMPY BURGER FACTOR

by Jenny Gardiner

I know you all know about the Wimpy Burger. Because we are all old enough to remember Popeye, right? Back when we were kids, there was nothing else on television but that lame-o cartoon several time a week (and of course Leave it To Beaver, but that's a story for another day). So for lack of anything better to do, we kicked back in front of the TV console (remember those consoles?!) and watched Popeye pouring on the spinach, Brutus forcing himself on Olive Oyl (talk about a wife-beater type), and Wimpy always in search of the elusive burger, for which he had no cash.

Wimpy's famous line, of course, was "I'll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today."

I have come to recite this line with regularity, sotto voce, around my teenaged son, who loves to "rob Peter to pay Paul" in order to borrow time. In other words, he's a Grand Master Procrastinator, and it's making me nuts.

You know the cliched line about Little Kids, Little Problems, Big Kids, Big Problems? Well, it's true. To a certain extent. Granted, your very small child can indeed get into all sorts of vexing, and even deadly trouble. Like swallowing something out of those bottles with the Mr. Yuk stickers would constitute Big Problem for Little Kids.

But generally speaking, once they get bigger, you can be assured of mental stresses that will add fat to your ass and gray to your head faster than you can say "My kid didn't do that!"

That is, of course, if you are a stress-eater (which I am), and inclined to sprout gray hairs under duress with the rapidity of a tender bean pod unfurling on a time-lapse video (ditto). [By the way, if something happens to my hairdresser, I sure as hell hope they can unearth his wonderful recipe for my bogus blond hair color or I'm screwed.]

Okay, so I'm beating around the bush. But here's my Big Kid issue. And really, it started out as a Little Kid issue, but we failed, failed, failed to quash it in its infancy, and so it has become a problem that has grown and spread like that bright yellow fungus that shows up magically in your mulch after a heavy rain.

It's all about teen boys and procrastination. Oy, vey.

Now, I know that there must be those boys who are punctual and get their homework done on time and go to bed before 1 a.m. and when they're supposed to be home at 11:30 they're home at 11:30 and not 12:10 with every legitimate-sounding excuse in the book as to why they're not there on time. But I haven't ever experienced that myself. And it makes me CRAZY.

I think the thing of it is that my son is such a fabulous kid in every way (except the procrastination, which, admittedly, bleeds into every aspect of our lives) that I have excused away this bad habit to the point that it's now a firmly-entrenched personality trait that constantly comes back to bite not only him in the butt, but us as well. I have been his procrastination enabler, feeding the addiction instead of stopping it early and often.

And I wonder often: is the procrastination of a 17-year old a trait that will never recede? Much like a 15-year old nail biter, really unlikely to ever cease that obsessive habit. Or, say, a 45-year old stress-eater who blithely pops peanut M&Ms when anxiety hits the flash point.

This all came to a head this week when college admissions letters came out. And to our great dismay, our intellectually curious teenaged son, with a passion for learning and smarts to spare and who truly deserved admission into most of the colleges to which he applied found himself wait-listed for his top choices (this of course hastened by the fact that this of all years is officially the hardest year to get into college, thanks to the Type-A overachieving Baby Boomer parents, whose children have all reached matriculation peak this year). And these wait-lists? A direct result of years of Wimpy Burger behavior that sadly cancelled out SO many of the hugely important and relevant things he's done over the years, because when it came time to crunch for that AP Calculus exam, he was too engrossed in debating other political buffs on some website where you create and sustain your own nation-state to bother with integers or whatever it is you learn in Calculus. A really well-meaning kid whose track record was exemplary in so many areas, but who just couldn't help but reaching for that Wimpy Burger time and again when he should've been focusing on those irrelevant classes that ultimately mean nothing down the road, because really, who actually uses Calculus anyhow?

On one level my heart aches for him that he couldn't squelch the Wimpy Burger in himself, couldn't see far enough down the road to realize that even if he would rather spend hours on the computer debating world events, the fact is you have to play the high school game if you want to get past it and ultimately into the area in which you have a passion. You can't keep blowing off the have-to's to deal with the want-to's, even if the want-to's really matter. The have-to's are sort of the tolls on the highway toward your dreams, and you can't jump the tollbooth---eventually it catches up with you.

Our philosophy all along has been that our kids need to learn to sink or swim on their own. We refuse to be helicopter parents, hand-holding and hovering and ensuring every step they take is the right step. And so it's been agonizing for us to watch this unfold, to watch his dreams now have to re-shape to fit this new reality, a reality that exists because of those damned Wimpy Burgers. You can be sure I am left to question whether we should have, could have, done something to stop the Wimpy Burger behavior from getting beyond him. And to hope that perhaps this time the lesson will take hold (but most likely won't)...

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The irony has not escaped me that a wait list for college admission is almost a Wimpy Burger sort of thing in and of itself. "I'll gladly accept you Tuesday, that is, unless I can't find an opening for you, er, um..."

Am I the only mom with a perpetually procrastinating boy? Or is this the rule, rather than the exception?

Getting Accepted . . . or Not

Posted by Judy

Thirty years ago this spring, I was nervously and eagerly watching the mail for my college acceptance letters.  By the time May rolled around I'd hit the trifecta:  one rejection, one acceptance, one wait list.  The wait list eventually became a rejection.  So, that fall, I packed my suitcases, my trunk, my Peaches record crate, and my plans to major in English and Pre-Med, and headed off to Knoxville, Tennessee and started college.

It wasn't my first choice. 

Four years later I'd graduated from The University of Wisconsin which hadn't even been in that first list of three.

I know that this spring, high school seniors across the country are waiting for those letters (do they still hope for the thick envelope?).  In my house, we have a break from this since my two sons are already in college and my stepkids aren't at that stage right now.  But my nephew is.  So are children of friends.  So the stress is there.  And for 15 years I taught high school and watched my students' hopes rise and fall with the mail.

And here's my advice. 

#1-Be sure your "safety school" is a place you want to go.  Because sometimes, that's where you'll end up and it's a good thing if you like it. 

#2-If you don't get into your first choice, that might be the best thing that ever happened to you.  Because sometimes it's your first choice for all the wrong reasons.

#3-You can always transfer if it doesn't work out.  When I landed in Madison in August of 1980, I knew I'd arrived in my perfect place. 

You know, 17 and 18 year-olds are so vulnerable.  And they've been told that the college choice MATTERS.  That it'll set them on the course for the REST OF THEIR LIVES.  And I always want to tell them to relax.  Yes, it's a big (and expensive!) decision.  But they need to remember (and so do parents in this era of parents living through their kids' achievements and bragging about which Yoohoo U their little cherub just was accepted to) to not take it so personally. They didn't reject YOU; they don't know you well enough to reject you.  They rejected your application.  And, sometimes it's a total toss-up.  They can't take everyone who meets their expectations.  So, sometimes, they practically are picking names out of a hat.  I have found, over and over again, that every college offers amazing opportunities.  Every college has great teachers and jerky ones.  Every dorm is full of smart kids, partiers, jocks, lonely kids, and potential friends. 

This is one step.  It's the next step.  But it's not the only step.  It's sure not the most important step.  And it's not even near the last step.

Embrace it, but try not to be too defined by it if it's not the step you thought you'd be taking.

Labels: college, kids, parenting, teens, worry

Organizing the massive college mailings

Out of the blue, this week seems to be some kind of gateway to the college brochures. We got one last week, which shocked the hell out of me, and then this week the gateway opened and my mail is filled with them. Sometimes as many as 10 a day. While the Boy isn't all that interested right now, I think we should save them for a bit later in the year.

But how do I organize them. Should I do it by region? By state? By possibility of actual acceptance? I need some suggestions because I honestly don't have a clue. I know we don't want to toss them yet, because we haven't had the time to actually look through them. But some kind of organization system is calling, I know it is. I just don't know WHAT to save and what not. And how to save them.

I have a lot of stuff from the school that needs to be saved as well, like the ACT and SAT applications. Oy Vey!

Tell me, oh wise mothers of children already in college, how did you deal with this influx of paper?

Labels: college, parenting