<p>A lovely piece of writing that captures the complex feelings many have about boarding school.</p>
<p>An</a> Open Letter To My Boarding School | Thought Catalog</p>
<p>Beautiful and smart. Thank you for the link.</p>
<p>Beautiful. Brought tears to my eyes as I think about Fall 2014 and bringing my daughter to boarding school and what that entails for both us.</p>
<p>Somebody please explain to me why they would send their child away to school instead of keeping them close and building family bonds. I think this “letter” is sad–it’s written to an institution rather than to parents.</p>
<p>gouf: clearly you’re not a boarding school parent. None of us have sent our children away. Our children have chosen (and were chosen) to experience the wonderful opportunities of their respective boarding schools, and we parents are supporting them along their wonderful journeys. There isn’t a parent on this board who doesn’t miss his child terribly, but we stand aside for the amazing educations and experiences our children are receiving. If my child could get at home what he is getting at his BS, we would never have entertained the idea. If he had not wanted to attend BS, he would be home. The BS decision is about our kids, not about us. But I do understand that boarding school is not for every child or every family.</p>
<p>gouf, consider it one of those “mysteries” in life. You are so far away from this world that chances are even if somebody presents you the “why”, you won’t get it. I’d just leave it and tell myself “Well, not for me!”.</p>
<p>I also thought it was very sad. Not a boarding school parent so apparently puts me in the ‘unable to get it’ group. Actually I do understand why boarding school might be the right choice for some…but I find this letter really sad.</p>
<p>+1, ChoatieMom. You are so articulate… I’m going to memorize that response and use it the next time someone asks me why I sent my daughter away!</p>
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<p>The sentiments are about the institution, not about the parents.</p>
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<p>I, too, sense sadness, but I think “bittersweet” is more accurate. I had some of those very same feelings about my undergraduate soiree. The letter is boarding-school specific because the young writer has just left that particular dance. I wonder how she will feel about her college “partner”. It would be interesting to compare those two letters.</p>
<p>Choatie–I plead guilty. I most likely won’t ever understand but would like to.
Hopefully, as parents we make a bigger difference in our kid’s lives (for at least a bit while longer) than any greater educational experience.</p>
<p>I don’t see “letters” being written to a college–maybe because a college doesn’t become a parent or replace one.</p>
<p>@gouf: Neither does a high school.</p>
<p>or middle, elementary, or kindergarten</p>
<p>While it was exceptionally well written, I found the personified dancing partner a bit creepy and unnecessary. I especially enjoyed the acknowledgment of both the good and bad, the heavy and the light.</p>
<p>A nice bit of writing, but I don’t think unique to boarding school. This could have been written “to” any organization: a day school, a college, a camp. The important line: “Mostly, I hated you for giving me beautiful people and then taking them away” says it all. Everybody’s life has moments and places where just the right people come along at just the right time and it’s full of magic and change. Unfortunately, those moments don’t last forever and if you’re a positive person you are grateful to have had the experience in the first place and take away all kinds of amazing learning. I don’t want to sound too scrooge-like, but I’d say to the writer that it won’t be her last time to feel similar angst!</p>
<p>I think it is so lovely. I remember that feeling when I was in BS even though i was a day student. I loved how she described the school saying goodbye to her as it was ready-ing itself for new freshman. How could something so meaningful to her be so ready to accept others? Very cool. I feel like that about the school where I work. Every graduating 8th grade is amazing as they head off to high school, I can’t imagine another taking it’s place.
Nice share.</p>
<p>Gouf78
Our family is new to the boarding school scene. When I hear someone question the fact that I would allow my son to go away to school, it implies that we are lacking in our parenting responsibilities. I will tell you that boarding school is not for every kid. Allowing a child to go away to school is the most selfless act a parent can make. We must put our own wishes and desires aside and do what is in the best interest of our children. We do not give up our role as parents, we begin to parent in a different way. For the right kid, boarding school offers a child an opportunity to develop his or her own independence in a controlled, secure and loving environment. It is not easy and I miss my son everyday. I savor the moments we have on the phone and I look forward to the time when he comes home to visit. Deep down in my heart, I know that the education he is getting could not be duplicated here at home. So from my perspective, the easy way out would be to rob him of the boarding school experience so I can have him home with me. And perhaps the fact that he is thriving at his new school is a testament to all of the hard work his mother and I have done up to this point.</p>
<p>Gouf78
I hear you and agree that we as parents “make a bigger difference in our kid’s lives than any greater educational experience.” I’m not sure any parent, boarding school or not would disagree with that. But I guess I disagree with the idea that physical proximity is the necessary glue to building family bonds in adolescence. In some ways, I think the distance, as perverse as it may seem, makes them both closer and stronger. That distance doesn’t have to be geographical, but like it or lump it, our adolescents are taking most of their cues from peers and peer influencers, not from mom and dad. That’s not because they don’t like mom and dad, they’re just learning what it’s like to flap their own wings a bit. For many, the experience of having so many trusted adults in their lives and so many great and grounded peers adds so much to their own formative development. And a good BS is life changing for many in that regard.</p>
<p>We have three kids and my eldest just trotted off to boarding school this fall. His choice, and far from our own experience. But, what a choice. As great as the academic and EC range is, it’s the independence and the trust and the fact that he’s encouraged to fly. </p>
<p>I’m colored by my own life perspective, not from boarding school, but by a mom who encouraged her girls to be independent and to "go for it’ in our own lives. Whatever cockamamie scheme I had, and I had many, whether it was to spend a summer in the Soviet Union (Yes I am that old) or ship out to the U.K., to France, or the West Coast during and after college, she was our greatest supporter, keen for us to soar. Some might fear such separations mean their offspring leave the nest too early. In my particular experience, I found it just made out nest grow so much bigger. So, when people inquire about our own son, I say we just have a really big nest. It can and does often make those bonds so much stronger.</p>
<p>“I had forgotten how much I loved your geometry. How you had taken something as grossly tangled as high school, and parceled it out into rectangular rooms within rectangular buildings within rectangular patches of grass. I had never known something so complicated to live in straight lines.”</p>
<p>I think this is the best and most accurate part of the whole letter. It is just so true. There is a unique “structure” to BS that cannot be found elsewhere in the high school realm.</p>
<p>I am a new boarding school parent too, single mom, going through the process for Fall 2014. I must say that I didn’t even know these types of schools existed until a friend of my daughter’s just happened to mention she was applying. I’m so glad because quite frankly, I wasn’t sure what I was going to do about high school, other than moving. I’m glad I have a wide range of choices other than her local school. We’ve been interviewing/touring since the summer and after our last school visit, my daughter told me that she really wants to go to BS. She does not even want to consider local independent day schools. This is her decision and I’m going to support it 100%.</p>