<p>"but I think the classes are incredible even beyond what I expected."</p>
<p>I’m sorry, Unregistered. I was just having a bit of fun. What I said was true, but I’m sure my daughter’s class is an extreme exception. (I believe I know why)
There’s no argument the classes at Amherst are amazing and everyone participates, as you said. My old Amherst and Smith friends would concur. One friend (male) was in the 1st Amherst class that enrolled women. You want stories!! ;) </p>
<p>Fwiw-All the current Smithies I’ve conversed with love the classes at Amherst as well. </p>
<p>Tell ya what, next visit I’ll buy you a beer(s) at the Lord Jeff to make amends. :)</p>
<p>So some smoked, and some were pierced. Yeah. They weren't plastered 3-4 days a week, they weren't tooling around in BMWs, they weren't discussing designer clothes, or their weight (my d. was astonished on one of her visits to an "elite" school to witness that), and in their very first week in school were involved in a highly literate discussion of the ethics of lying.</p>
<p>And the conclusion?</p>
<p>"Sitting there that night, it dawned on me: This is who will be running the country when I am an old woman. I knew, right then, that we'd all be better off when these brave-new-world citizens were in charge."</p>
<p>I'm looking forward to it. Zeus knows, we've made a hash of it.</p>
<p>{{So some smoked}} “they weren't tooling around in BMWs, they weren't discussing , or their weight”</p>
<p>Interesting post. Let me play devils advocate for a moment. I believe most sane parents would rather have their child 'tooling around' in an extremely safe, well made, albeit expensive car, discussing or being concerned about their weight b/c they don’t want to be one the 70% of Americans who are overweigh/obese, than killing themselves (and others around them) smoking cigarettes. Not to mention the health care costs to society incurred by smoking cigs and whatever else.…As far as I know, being concerned (although not to the point of obsession) about ones weight or driving a Beemer isn’t detrimental to ones health or a financial burden to society. Just a thought.:)</p>
<p>Oh, I am not such a humorless loyalist that I can't handle a little friendly jabbing at Amherst! But if you are going to buy me a beer, you may as well buy me plane tickets to your choice of Europe, Canada, Mexico...where it is legal!</p>
<p>It's the obsession with weight that's the problem. There are too many young girls with body image issues in our society. You probably know this since you have a daughter.</p>
<p>MWM, at least two of us have D's who danced pretty serious ballet...where the problems about body weight are magnified. As a dancer, D was 5 percent below what she "should" way and a director wanted her to be 10 percent under...D said nuts to that. Dancing only 4-6 hours a week at Smith instead of 18-20 like she did in high school, she's gone from a size 2 and stabilized at a size 6 (the new 14) and is fine with it.</p>
<p>That's good news about your daughter. My daughter had a problem with anorexia when she was a freshman in high school. It was pretty scary because she starting restricting her eating more and more until she was down to about 600 calories a day. Eventually, with the help of her doctor and a nutritionist, we got her turned around. She's still very thin, probably only 110 lbs., but she eats a lot better.</p>
<p>My son went to a private school where they had a serious dance program and they actually had staff on hand to work with the kids on eating disorders.
I thought that was a good idea, to work with the kids before they go off into the professional dance world.</p>
<p>We've noticed some of that where my D danced as well; although not that much (gladly). My D never bought into that "dancers need to be thin" stuff, and luckily for us, neither did the ballet studio where she danced for over ten years. I can definitely see where that would apply elsewhere however; as when my D took lessons at the Boston Ballet for a summer and she noticed that there was a distinct difference between her ballet company and that one in terms of body image.</p>