Two years ago I had this conversation with the mother of one of my daughter’s classmates:
Her: We’re thinking about moving to another school district.
Me: Why? Did you or your husband get a new job?
Her: No. We’re worried about Jennifer’s class rank.
Me: Um … okay.
Her: This school district is so competitive. It’s almost impossible to make into the top ten percent. And you, if you’re not in the top ten percent, you don’t automatically get into UT, A&M or Texas Tech. And if you can’t get in there…
Me: Um ….
Her: What do you think?
Me: Don’t colleges know how competitive our school district is? Shouldn’t that matter?
Her: <Looking at me like I’m a naive idiot> Um ….
At the time, our kids were in the second grade. I thought she was crazy. Like, bat-shit crazy. Why would you move (actually sell your house and move) so your kid could go to an inferior school district in the fear that ten years from now his or her GPA might not be competitive?
Flash forward to Monday morning. Someone forwarded The Geek an article from Money Magazine ranking colleges. He’s rattling off interesting facts:
Him: Did you know most of the really good colleges are upwards of $150,000?
Me: <choking on coffee>
Him: Did you know Stanford only accepts 8% of its applicants?
Me: Uh???
Him: Oh, look, Harvard only accepts 6%.
Me: <gasping for breath>
five minutes later
Me: How do we feel about moving to a shitty school district?
Okay. So we’re not moving. Yet. But I am officially freaked out. My daughter is in the forth grade. Middle school is right around the corner. Those days when I have to think about class ranking and dream colleges is right around the corner. Like so many times in my past as a mother, parts of me are at war. On one hand, I don’t want to be the crazy mom who moves the whole family to engineer a better class rank for my kid. On the other, I want her to have options. I want her to get into any school she wants to go to. I want her to enjoy her childhood. I worry that we’re not doing enough. I remind myself that I got into Texas A&M (and so did her father) and that was good enough for both of us. I don’t want to push too hard, but I’ve always felt my parents didn’t push enough.
What if she wants to go to Harvard and doesn’t get in. What if she does get in and we have to pay for it? What if pay for it and then … and then … my baby is going to live in Boston!!!!
What if she never moves back? I’m going to have to move there too! I’m going to have to learn to drive in the snow!
Thank goodness for The Geek. While I was hyperventilating, he pointed out several wise things: we still have time, we have savings, our kids are bright, we didn’t go to Harvard and we’re okay. Remembering all of that helped.
But here’s the bottom line: I’m going to panic. Every time I think I’ve got this parenting thing under wraps, there’s going to be something to freak me out. I can go from zero to panicked in sixty seconds flat. Okay, in this case it was more like fifteen minutes. Still, you see what I mean right?
Here’s one of those things I never knew about parenting: I would be afraid all the time. I would be afraid of crazy crap that I would totally make fun of under other circumstances. And I would always be trying to hide how afraid I am. Because here’s the deal: I’m okay telling The Geek when I’m afraid. I’m okay telling you guys. I’m not okay with the kids knowing it. They don’t need my crazy in their heads. My girl will have her own fears about college and they will come soon enough.
So, what about you? Are you thinking about college yet? What makes you panic?
Emily McKay lives in Central Texas with her family and her chickens where she writes YA horror and eats lots of cookies.
peanut butter on the keyboard 