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Now divorced from her second husband, she has moved from their home in Cranston to an apartment in Newport because her daughter, Ally, is a freshman at the Portsmouth Abbey School nearby. Ms. Garcia Ponte was determined, she said, to stay connected to Ally in a way her mother wasn’t able to do with her.“When my daughter brought up boarding school, that was something that was so foreign to me,” she said. ..It’s a fabulous opportunity for her, but I’m not ready to give up parenting.”
<p>It’s odd to think of having a kid go off to school and parents just moving with them. On the other hand, if they can afford having their own place instead of staying in a hotel, I can see the appeal. If many parents are doing this, it might be an investment to sell or rent when the student graduates. </p>
<p>I’d move to Newport, too but not to be near my kid. I wonder if she’d do this if the school was in another (less than desirable) location. Sounds like she probably would… and my sympathy goes out to her kid. </p>
<p>I’d like to think my kids feel my presence without me being there… Sometimes I’d like to think I haunt them in their sleep…but that’s just me. :)</p>
<p>It’s not uncommon, though, for parents to buy homes close to schools so their kids can be day students. Many foreign families do this not just to be close to their kids but to put their applications into the somewhat less competitive day-student pool.</p>
<p>Is the student in the article boarding or living in the apartment with mom? If she’s boarding and mom is in the apartment just to be “close,” that’s just nuts. It negates a major benefit of boarding. Double cringe.</p>
<p>Slightly bizarre, of course the Real Estate brokers like it. IMO puts the Head Master and faculty on the spot, they can’t exactly say go away and instead provide the best spin they can in a favorable light.</p>
<p>I know there was a thread in the past questioning whether or not parents of applicants are vetted as well. I say they are but like some students, a few get through. I’ll admit I’m old school but boarding school is boarding school and parents aren’t to move in next door. We are / have created a generation of weenies.</p>
<p>My son is a “local boarder” as well. This was definitely by design. We didn’t consider schools that were more than an hour away from our home. I just wasn’t ready to go there. I also realize that this really wasn’t because we thought that he couldn’t tolerate it, but that I didn’t think it was right for our family. His younger siblings really struggle with not having him around and being able to visit with him and see his games is a definite plus. I really don’t think that makes me a “helicopter parent”. If that were me, then my son wouldn’t be boarding at all.
I get very frustrated by the perception that the general public has of boarding school kids and parents!</p>
<p>For those of us who are looking at day schools because “I’m not ready to give up parenting”, does that make us even bigger “helicopter parents”? Why such judgementalism?</p>
<p>And, btw, Newport is not all that close to Portsmouth, and Cranston (where the Mom moved from) is not all that far either.</p>
<p>To put it into context, people able to pay tuition and consider buying or renting a home near a school often have holiday or weekend houses as well. Many of the schools are set in lovely, bucolic towns. And I think it’s easy to underestimate how quiet the house gets when the children are away.</p>
<p>I have sympathy for the Newport mom. If the child’s her entire family, it gets very lonely. </p>
<p>Newport is roughly 10 miles from Portsmouth (last time I checked). It’s been awhile, so maybe I’m wrong. But if I’m right, she could probably contact her daughter by using two beer cans and some string…</p>
<p>Cranston to Portsmouth is about a 35-40 min drive.
Newport to Portsmouth is about a 20-25 min drive (more traffic-y).
Either one is commutable, but I guess my point is that you’re not so close as to be driving by the school on a daily basis (or even weekly) in either location.</p>
<p>As a New Yorker with a daughter at Cate, EVERYONE asks if we are going to buy a house in Santa Barbara! My reply is that we already did, in the form of a dorm room. It would be nice to be able to just drive up and see her if she were at Choate for example, but that’s not what she chose, so we are making the best of the long-distance. Day student, “local boarder”, 2 hour drive away or 6 hour flight across the country, we are all trying to do what we think is best for our kids. I don’t begrudge anyone else’s decision when it comes to this issue - you know your kids best. @Momto4kids, I agree with you that the adjustment for the siblings left at home is a difficult one.</p>
<p>LOL, no one ever gives up parenting.<br>
Long weekends coupled with holidays you’ll find your kids coming and going all year long. They’ll define school as their second home and it’s all good. West coast to East coast and vice versa obviously not so easy but most can handle it. </p>
<p>I will say that if I moved that close, it would follow that my kid would be a day student. Just think of the savings! </p>
<p>I also have to say that I would never allow my “story” to be told in the paper… imagine the teasing your kid might receive…it’s hard enough being a freshman. I suppose there are many reasons that a family might move – although I second PhotographerMom: I could move to Newport – but for ME!</p>
<p>This thread isn’t about day students. It’s about a mom sending her child to boarding school as a boarder and then moving two-beer-cans-and-a-string away because she isn’t ready to let her child go, one of the very things BS are trying to ferret out about parents. It would be like me getting an apartment in Wallingford (or Meriden or New Haven) to be close to ChoatieKid so I could continue “parenting.” This mom doesn’t understand that parenting does not end when you send your child to boarding school; she has attachment issues. If the daughter were living with her and attending as a day student, I’d be looking at this in a whole different light.</p>
<p>Come on, twice divorced, last kid, apparently still working, and a choice to live in Newport, a quaint historic town with lots of restaurants and shops- and some interest for a single woman- rather than Cranston, a bedroom community? Easy. So the kid can come home occasionally, go look at yachts. Oddly, I don’t cringe. What did get me was D1’s freshman roommate’s mom, who took a job across the street from college, (an hour-plus from home,) to be near the kid.</p>
<p>Not that Ms. Garcia Ponte will see her daughter much. Local parents are encouraged to stay away the first few weeks, “so the children can acclimate,” she said. “And they only get two weekends away per trimester.”</p>
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