<p>Yes, MiamiDAP. Things happen. Spouses leave. Spouses die. Jobs are lost. Salaries are cut. People get sick. Not everyone has the same “choices”.</p>
<p>My neighbor with the husband with ALS who is essentially raising three children by herself, working full time AND taking care of a spouse on a ventilator, in a wheelchair, completely incapacitated, would be happy to learn that being a single parent and never having enough money is a choice.</p>
<p>Yeah, I am sure a lot of single parents would love to know that it was actually a choice to “let” their spouse leave them for someone else, or get brain cancer, or be in a fatal car accident.</p>
<p>Miami - your posts make me laugh, without fail, every time I see them. Thank you for the chuckle.</p>
<p>lilmom,
It is interesting observation that while everybody here is up to bashing everybody in a world, I can only say that it is nobody’s business and nothing else. How about just admit it all around and not pick an choose? If it is NOBODY’S businessm than it is all around nobdy’s businees. If you want to say something, then everybody should be able to express whatever they say. One thing that I keep repeating to my kids (here I do have a right) that if one keep on blaming circumstances, than this person is putting herself in a corner and potentially for the rest of her life. One have to find a courage to take yourself out of any predicament and the only way to do is to find a courage to ask your personal self, what I can do to change it, if I want to change my life. I agree 100% that it is nobody’s business, but this applies to the whole entire thread and not only to my post. </p>
<p>MANKIND is my business. (Or was my business–isn’t that what Marley’s Ghost said?)</p>
<p>“One thing that I keep repeating to my kids (here I do have a right) that if one keep on blaming circumstances, than this person is putting herself in a corner and potentially for the rest of her life. One have to find a courage to take yourself out of any predicament and the only way to do is to find a courage to ask your personal self, what I can do to change it, if I want to change my life.”</p>
<p>Miami, here you are correct, IMO. When I read the article, I saw myself six years ago. A crazy mom who pulled out all the stops to get her kid into college. Pushing my kid to the point our mother-son relationship was strained. It is not an experience I want to repeat again. My youngest is 10 years younger than my S and I am wiser. </p>
<p>The difference is when I read the article, It caused me to reflect on my own experience as a parent. not give me cause to judge others. </p>
<p>To each his own. I would never, ever give up the days of running around with my D. We lived an hour away from her school (in rush hour traffic each way). I did that commute for 13 years. She played sports, belonged to a national organization, etc. Some nights I was so tired I could barely lay my head on the pillow. Since she could not drive, it was my job to get her from point A to point B. The other sports parents and I were great friends then, and are great friends now. The parents left behind on the team when our kids graduated miss us dearly.</p>
<p>My D did her homework throughout middle and high school without prompting or checking from me. I stayed out of her college application process and only read her essay just as she was hitting send (it was great and thankfully I caught the one last typo that she and her GC had missed).</p>
<p>As I have stated on other posts, her dad and I are paying through the nose for her to go to her dream college. That is my choice and her dad’s. Not anyone’s business. And no, I won’t be in debt when she gets out - but my house may be falling apart. Also my choice.</p>
<p>Do I have friends who think I am crazy? Yes. Are they doing the same for their kids? Some are not. Do I make judgments about their parenting? Most certainly not.</p>
<p>I do love CC because it allows us to see topics through a variety of lenses. Luckily I do not have to agree with all of them, but I do love reading them.</p>
<p>I read the whole thread, and the opinion piece.</p>
<p>I can find truth and examples from my own small world to support every one of your arguments.</p>
<p>I have one kid who <em>could</em> be viewed as the epitomy of the pushed, over parented kid. Great grades, scores, class rank, great athelete, first chair in all-stare band, blah, blah, blah. He’s also a wonderful, warm, funny person, and is a kid who is joyful in his accomplishments. No stress, no anxiety, no staying up unreasonably late to finish his homework </p>
<p>We, as parents, provided the DNA, the donkey parenting, and enough money to be able to support him in his interests. But he lead the way. We just tried to keep up. We spent a lot of time behind the curve. “SAT subject tests? Why? All those AP classes in one year? Why? Why would you want to take the ACT when your SAT scores were great?”</p>
<p>He wasn’t pushed or over parented, or stressed, or over tired. He was, and is, happy. But there <em>could</em> be people out there in our community who think we must have been pushing, pushing, pushing. </p>
<p>Now, had we attemped to re-create that same high school experience with our other two kids, we would have been guilty of being the worst tiger parents in America. They all came from the same gene pool, and our other two have done well in school and in life, and are happy. But they are just different people. They re more prone to the philosophy of “Why would I want to take the SAT again? This score is good enough.” And it was good enough for the schools they were/are interested in, but not even in the ballpark for "top"schools. This does not seem to have affected their abilities to go to fine colleges, have a career, find love, and have a social life, any more or less than their brother’s high school experience did.</p>
<p>If I viewed the world through the lens of one kid, I could be judge-y towards the slacker parents and kids who are
happily living somewhere below the top 5% of their classes. Mine did it with such ease, you just aren’t trying hard enough. On the other hand, if I viewed the world through the lenses of my other two, I could be judge-y towards those tiger parents who must be pushing their kids. Mine would be basket cases if they did all of that, you must be pushing, pushing, pushing. </p>
<p>I’m not a parent, but I work with students prepping for SAT, ACT, SSAT, etc. Every parent does it a bit differently and every student handles it a bit differently. I would not personally choose some of the extremes I’ve seen parents go to to get their children into Ivy league schools (constant studying and extracurriculars to the point that their children doze off in tutoring sessions because they’re so tired), but I also wouldn’t bother having my children take these exams if they weren’t going to prep or take it seriously.</p>
<p>I think anyone can find a balance between prep, extracurriculars, and a fun social life. I’m not saying it’s easy, but there is a way to make sure these students take prep and admissions seriously, but understand that it’s not the end of the world and that they can have fun sometimes. </p>