Friday, January 30, 2004
I know I'm not the only college parent out there shaking his/her head at the fact that so much money must be hemorrhaged before the college-going offspring 'starts getting it.' Today is one of those days where I feel like the $80,000 spent thus far to send him to college for two years in D.C. is equivalent to having lit a match to a suitcase full of cash.
There are days when my son will demonstrate a sliver of maturity only to do something so utterly stupid the next day that you think surely he was accidentally switched at birth and you got stuck with some kind of genetic mishap. I guess what's really happening is that expectations (mostly mine) are coming into alignment with reality. The son is who he is and will be what he will be and it's not what I expected.
The son has some hard choices ahead. We, his parents, cannot pave the road for him anymore. Can't make things right again. Can’t bandage his boo-boos. At nineteen, he owns his destiny and if he doesn't get his shit together quickly his destiny might very well be a local community college and living in a flea-bitten apartment somewhere nearby. Not that there is anything wrong with a community college. It’s just not what any of us, including the son, aspired for. But if indeed this is where he is supposed to end up, did we have to spend so much money to find out?
I can only hope that very soon a shard of maturity will cut forever the vines of infantility that are starting to choke off doors of opportunity to him. If not, I can only hope he finds a rich wife. He might theoretically be able to grasp what his future holds if he doesn't start rolling up his sleeves, but believe me this Abercrombie boy doesn't have a practical clue what being a part of Senator Edward's 'other America' means.
There are days when my son will demonstrate a sliver of maturity only to do something so utterly stupid the next day that you think surely he was accidentally switched at birth and you got stuck with some kind of genetic mishap. I guess what's really happening is that expectations (mostly mine) are coming into alignment with reality. The son is who he is and will be what he will be and it's not what I expected.
The son has some hard choices ahead. We, his parents, cannot pave the road for him anymore. Can't make things right again. Can’t bandage his boo-boos. At nineteen, he owns his destiny and if he doesn't get his shit together quickly his destiny might very well be a local community college and living in a flea-bitten apartment somewhere nearby. Not that there is anything wrong with a community college. It’s just not what any of us, including the son, aspired for. But if indeed this is where he is supposed to end up, did we have to spend so much money to find out?
I can only hope that very soon a shard of maturity will cut forever the vines of infantility that are starting to choke off doors of opportunity to him. If not, I can only hope he finds a rich wife. He might theoretically be able to grasp what his future holds if he doesn't start rolling up his sleeves, but believe me this Abercrombie boy doesn't have a practical clue what being a part of Senator Edward's 'other America' means.
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