<p>A</a> Father's Acceptance: His Son Won't Follow His Ivy Footsteps - NYTimes.com</p>
<p>Surprised nobody posted this yet; great essay.....</p>
<p>Wow, his son sounds so much like my second son! Thanks for posting the essay.</p>
<p>Everything Dave Marcus writes is awesome.</p>
<p>Love the essay. I sent it around to lots of people yesterday.</p>
<p>Loved it! With 3 kids and a nephew I am practically raising, I think I need to read this DAILY!</p>
<p>Sent it to my hubby - who really needed to hear this. He is fixated on D attending a name school vs the 2nd tier equally prestigious institution that is far more suited to her goals in life. Glad to have seen this (I keep forgetting to check my NYTimes emails)!!</p>
<p>Good essay… but the dad is still focused on “imagining Benjie’s application essay”, while Benjie might have noticed that his dog-breeder uncle and aunt are earning a living in a field that doesn’t require a college degree. He does say he can “make a strong case for going to community college or mastering a trade”… but hasn’t yet made the leap of accepting that is what his own C-earning son might be doing after college.</p>
<p>I don’t want to sell the kid short – a lot of kids are late bloomers and for all we know in 20 years Benjie may have a graduate degree. But the kid is not really motivated to rack up grades while in high school, so unless there’s a big change, planning on college straight out of high school might not be the best road for him to follow. </p>
<p>(And worse: the dad is writing the application essay, if only in his own imagination. The first part of letting go for helicoptering parents is to stop mentally writing the kids’ essay for them.)</p>
<p>The kid is only 14. A lot can change.</p>
<p>This essay chronicles a segment of parental growth. Yes, the son is growing. Yes, much can/will change in the next 3-4 years. But notable to me is the dad’s growing acceptance and understanding. Awesome.</p>
<p>I would have taken the author’s “belated enlightenment” far more seriously and on a face value if his son is a straight A student who nevertheless decided to follow a path of his own far from his father AND the father (the author of the article) embraced it.</p>
<p>As much as this is a heart warming essay, it still sounds a little like a man who is rationalizing his consolation prize.</p>
<p>He is a loving and learning Dad, yes still trying to write his son’s college admissions essay. But I think he’s in for a big surprise, and that’s when he is forced to acknowledge that college isn’t the end of his son’s deciding and learning. </p>
<p>The economy that kids are moving into is very very different from the one that we, their parents, entered several decades ago. The kids are likely to be moving into careers, or rather a series of jobs, that we can only imagine.</p>
<p>My kids are both several years beyond college now (one is about to finish graduate school, which began after 5 years working in “the economy” after undergraduate school). For both kids, as predictable as their transitions from high school to college were (their admissions essays were a breeze), just as UNpredictable have their post-college lives been. The multiple transitions in each case have been “progressive” (they are learning, and to some extent also earning), but it has not been a pre-determined or planned progression. It’s more stochastic, affected by unanticipated opportunities. I think this has much to do with the evolving economy, including changing technology (not just the recession) but it’s also affected by their ability and willingness to change with it. </p>
<p>This economic reality is perhaps the best reason why when we counsel and perhaps steer our kids in their college search and selection, we should be open to the unexpected. We can’t write admissions essays for the post-college lives of our children.</p>
<p>@momofwildchild</p>
<p>14 is already pretty old. the kid is probably in high school right now. and after high school comes college… personally, i don’t think traits such as these change once you reach this age. if he’s already 14 and a few years away from college and doesn’t care about grades and school, i really doubt he’ll change. i’ve always cared about grades, and without my parents nagging me haha. every time they nag me about something, i’m thinking you know i got your genes right? obviously, the gene thing doesn’t always pan out (like this child compared to his father), but i like to think these things do generally get passed on. </p>
<p>anyway, i guess it’s not a bad thing to think a C is good–it just won’t get you into a good college unless you have stellar ECs or something. but getting into college isn’t everything, right?</p>
<p>^ah that is sweet…I imagine my kids thinking this way. I did too when I was young. You will discover with age that so much can happen and change over time. I am, thank god, so not lot my 14 yo self! I had a D that year, lots of Cs, and I shoplifted. Who knew I’d end up with a PhD and as a professor at an Ivy League school, lol.</p>
<p>We are not cut in stone. Many of us takes years to mature or blossom. Sometimes our minds and bodies are growing and busy with other invisible but important business so little things like grades have to take a backseat. And thankfully there are many many crooked and unpredictable paths to a wonderful, happy and productive life. Few of us follow a simple, linear road the whole way through.</p>
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<p>Breeding dogs isn’t a job you can make a living at unless you’re willing to be pretty horrible (like running a puppy mill). With seventeen spaniels, the couple probably are show-dog breeders. That’s a hobby that can soak up a looot of money (for traveling around to dog shows, health testing, prenatal care for pregnant females, paying stud fees, medical emergencies, and so on.)</p>
<p>Which is not to say that there aren’t great jobs out there that don’t require a college degree; I just wanted to clarify what dog breeding is like, as I know some breeders.</p>
<p>^I was thinking that, too. I know a lot of breeders and do a lot of work with dogs and the one thing I hear over and over is don’t refuse to neuter because you think you can make a buck on some puppies, if you’re doing it right breeding is an expensive hobby, not a source of income. Completely off the point, but whenever I hear someone talking about breeding that way it’s like nails on a chalkboard!</p>
<p>Very timely reminder. Thanks for posting. (Yes I’m sending to several people but I needed to read it too.)</p>
<p>I read once that whenever a breeder sells you a puppy, he’s really giving you a gift, because the cost to the breeder is greater than what you pay. I didn’t believe it, until I started attending dog shows and breeding Newfoundlands. I am over it now, but it really is an expensive hobby. Gaia, the female I bought in Italy almost eleven years ago, died this last August. I will never have another dog after her, because the heartbreak of them dying is just too great.</p>
<p>“if he’s already 14 and a few years away from college and doesn’t care about grades and school, i really doubt he’ll change”</p>
<p>Of course he can change. But if he does change, it won’t be because of anything his father does, and it likely won’t be in time to show the change to colleges. But it still counts!</p>
<p>Love the essay, love Benji, admire the flexibility of Dave Marcus. But you know, if Benji doesn’t care about spelling correctly, he should still make an effort to improve. If he sees no point in revising poor essays, he really needs to sit his lazy butt down and learn to do it. No, he doesn’t need to go to an Ivy League school - frankly, he doesn’t need to do college at all if it’s not for him. But learning to present himself in the best possible light will be a benefit throughout his life, and at 14, gaps in an academic work ethic don’t have to be accepted as lifelong “givens.”</p>
<p>You know, Gadad, sometimes I read a post and agree with everything that is said, it says things that weren’t posted by anyone previously in the thread, it seems full of common sense, and it is respectful and balanced. Then I look up for the name of the poster, and it’s you.</p>