“After a full weekend of unshakeable sadness” … I think you need to get a grip. While it is fine to care about your kid’s success and help them as much as you can, you should not be living vicariously through them. My mom loved me and supported me and she had no involvement at all in my college application process – and I ended up at a top university.
Had it been possible to parent without feeling a heaviness in my heart when my child was sad or frightened, or to counsel on danger/risk without experiencing worry, @carolinahbrah, the last few decades would have been much easier. This is parenting, though, at least for me, not living vicariously.
@gardenstategal I have reread your post and nowhere did you say your kid is sad because so and so got into Stanford. The tone of the whole post seems like you’re making your kid’s college application process about yourself. I think you and the other parents on this forum should not live vicariously through their children and should let their children, for the most part, do the application process by themselves. Certainly it’s good to give advice (especially when asked), but you should not be doing everything for them, because they’re about to be independent. More importantly, you shouldn’t take what’s supposed to be your kid’s experience and make it about yourself. I think that’s even worse than doing it all for them. The evidence seems clear to me that when you’re “unshakeably sad” that some other kid got into Stanford, it’s about you at this point. Like I said, my parents never stuck their nose in my business like that, and I really appreciate them for it. I think I turned out fine.
@carolinabrahh
So you’re saying that if you’d been rejected at all your top schools your parents would not have shared your sadness? They just would have been, “Meh. So what. Who cares.” Because that’s what you’re saying.
That said, you have NO idea what the gardenstategal family went through in their admission process. And yes, the family went through it because one of their members went through it. That is not the same thing as living vicariously through a child.
“I think I turned out fine.” You’re a little rude, though, and it’s odd you’re giving a lot of “SHOULD” advice on the parenting forum when 1) you aren’t even a parent, and 2) you don’t know any of these kids or their particular struggles.
@redpoodles I’m sorry but I completely disagree with everything you just said, even though you made your argument look rational. I remember back in 2012 on here applying there was a general tone that parents are on here living through their children and making the application process about themselves. Looking through the sub-forum, I think nothing has changed.
I think it is the kid’s responsibility and personal experience, not the parents’.
@carolinahbrah , if you have an agenda, that’s fine, but you’ve found the wrong forum for it. If you want to start a thread on parental involvement and expectations in the college search and application process, do it.
To clarify, it was about the fact that my child, and by extension, my family was sad about where we were in the process. One rejection and 2 WL from my child’s top 3 schools. What I wanted was to be celebrating and to be happy too. And be done with it! Nothing more. Not sure why you’re reading into this that I wanted my kid at Stanford or any school of that selectivity. That wasn’t what he wanted, and hence, not what I wanted for him.
Yes, the post was about my feelings because the OP was about not feeling happy for other kids when you would normally expect that of yourself. If you had read my post as carefully as you claim, you would see that I was surprised and infer that I was also a bit ashamed that my response was not a whoop of joy.
Also not sure where you came up with the idea that I had been deeply involved with my kid’s application process. He decided where to apply, and my “job” was to provide a credit card number for payment and to coordinate travel for visits. Not sure how that (and celebrating happiness or commiserating in sadness with the process) is “sticking your nose in their business”. That was what “love and support” looked like in my family.
There are many people on these boards who have generously shared their stories about suffering through hardships and events their kids encountered. This, on that scale, is small, and likewise merited only one weekend of (perhaps codependent) moping. But it was a real emotion, and I shared the story here because I thought it would help others who might be experiencing the same and were judging themselves harshly or fearful of being judged by others.
@carolinahbrahh One hopes that with age comes wisdom and perspective that you do not possess as a current college student. Hopefully you will develop some kindness, empathy and compassion as well.
Perhaps you should spend your time commenting on the student threads, not on those in the “Parents Forum.” This thread was started by @redpoodles because she was seeking support from other parents who have been in her shoes. It’s not necessary for you to come onto the thread and start trashing her or those who are posting in response.
I see nothing to be ashamed about so long as the “someone else’s kid” did something unkind/bad to one’s own kid and/or was an all around “stinker” of a person as someone upthread put it.
Even if the other kid was a good kind person, having such feelings is human and one shouldn’t beat up oneself over it.
Sometimes, being too virtuous even within oneself or an overly “goody-two shoes” is overrated and excessively draining for too little return.
And happy holidays to all. 
@carolinabrahh, I don’t want to beat a dead horse here, but I’m going to try to give you one more angle.
There’s some truth in what you say about the desirability of not living vicariously through children. But, we DO have intense feelings about our children, and that is pretty much universal. It’s also almost universal at your age, especially in our culture, to have intense feelings about pulling away (or fearing it) so you might get a visceral “ugh” feeling about clinging parents.
But paradoxically, parents posting and supporting one another about these kinds of issues with each other is a healthy way for us to separate from our children. Bringing it all here is a way to process everything without dumping the intensity on our kids. Making feelings taboo can just send them underground to grow like poison ivy vines sprouting everywhere, where they do the most damage.
Our current culture celebrates individuality and compartmentalizing feelings and experiences. There are some advantages to that. Conversely, many other cultures have survived and thrived precisely because they have emphasized group identity over the individual. People of these cultures would be very confused or bemused by the concepts of living vicariously or co-dependence. In one country where I lived as a young adult, almost without exception, any new person I met would ask “how can you stand to live without your mother?” Life-long togetherness of families, really whole communities, was/is the healthy norm there. There’s more than one way to be human.
Babies and young children really cannot survive without an almost symbiotic emotional attachment. (We know what terrible things happen to orphanage children who are cared for physically but not loved with deep emotion.) The time-frame for a child to gain the skills to become a self-supporting adult in our society is ever-increasing, with all the sophisticated skills that are necessary. It takes a LONG time for parents to wean ourselves away from the dedicated work we do. You should learn to be patient with the knowledge that we feel these intense things, even if it is normal for you not to want to be around it.
Your college app experience was a success? Maybe your parents do feel these things and talk to other adults about it rather than burdening you, so that you can fly freely.
I’m sure you didn’t want a lecture…but if you don’t want to try to understand…know your judgements may be inaccurate. Wishing you the best (truly)…
And, the rest of us know each other somewhat, how we think, what we go through, based on a number of threads we’ve been on together.
It’s tough to take a newly registered poster’s criticisms when he has no idea who’s helicoptering, tiger parenting, level headed or anything, just wants to diss. And not from any experience as a parent to a high school kid.
Btw, we’ve had threads from kids who generalize parents live vicariously. And it’s usually clear, pretty quickly, that their superior vantage point is just being kids, consumed with studies, friends, hopes, and what happens in their own own families, often some grudge or disappointment.
@inthegarden I appreciate your response
Just know that kids get in. What happens after that is up for grabs. Ivy kids crash and burn. CC kids wind up with 5 figure incomes. And the reverse. College admissions is the beginning not the end and it ain’t over until it’s over. Getting into a college no matter how prestigious should be celebrated. But beyond that future celebrations are up to the kid.
@qialah nothing about that post makes sense to me
Now see, @qialah’s post makes perfect sense to me. So true.
^Same here, I get exactly what @qialah was saying…and I couldn’t agree more!
I also believe @qialah . All too often the school name is considered more important than the person attending the school and what they bring to the picture. I know several people who bombed high school and attended CC, and then went on to amazing careers. Some of your Ivy profs took this route, fellow parents! One amazing Ivy prof I know was a boxer first, then CCed his way into academia. Often the people who took the non-conventional route are the ones who try colorful and creative things before finding a path. Many high-school bombers are slackers, I grant you that, but some are often risk takers and/or hard headed and determined in ways that parents and high schools can’t harness.
In alternate examples that I’ve noted elsewhere on this forum, I know many Ivy grads who go on to teach test prep for the rest of their lives, as if that’s the one skill they’ve mastered. Others who have gone into admin positions at the same Ivy they graduated from, and at least one person like this keeps telling me (over the past decade+) that he never discovered who he was before attending college and he’s too afraid to take a chance on something else. He dutifully stayed on the “correct” path and doesn’t know what to do now.
These are not the “rule” but the exceptions, I’m aware of that. But it’s interesting to notice.
Well, I just went through recruiting, and it really does matter where you went to school. Top firms won’t even recruit at most universities, let alone a community college. If you go to a CC and don’t transfer to a good school, your career is literally dead unless you start a business. Obviously there are exceptions, but I think if you had the statistics they would be few and far between. Going to CC vs a good university is like starting your career at the FirstBank of Nebraska vs JPMorgan. You would have a much more difficult climb to the top.
@carolinahbrah , you’re making the assumption that a “climb to the top” is what people are aiming for, or even should be aiming for.
I think that causes a lot of the jealously and misery people experience-they’re so focused on what other people are doing that they can’t enjoy their own path.
Or, they are unhappy with their path, but lack the ability or drive to change it, so watch the paths of other people instead and it eats at them.
I’d also assert that there is no “top”. I can guess with a fair amount of confidence that what you want for your life, and what you consider the “top”, is not at all what I’m working towards.
And @carolinahbrahh you’re new here, a student. CC is rich with adult posters with all levels of experience and expertise, including hiring managers, those who’ve recruited, been recruited, or found their work in other ways- and been successful. And lots of threads asking what matters. Look for them. This thread isn’t about that.