Don't know what I feeling
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| Sun, 07-29-2007 - 6:21pm |
I know I’m not going to be the first mother to think she’s the worst but I don’t know what I am feeling. My DD will be a senior come September. We are in the process of looking at colleges. Although she says she wants to go, she really doesn’t show any enthusiasm about the process. I just know that if I don’t push the time table she will let everything sit until the last minute.
She is an average student. Her GPA is around 2.8. She got 1590 on her SAT’s (including the writing component). She says she does not want to live away from home.
My first reaction was relief that we won’t have to spend for housing at college.
Then I felt annoyed because I know the reason she doesn’t want to live away is because she doesn’t want to leave her boyfriend and, to me, that’s a stupid reason to throw away the chance to experience true college life.
Then I think we can’t force her to go. Each time I bring it up she says, “what, are you trying to get rid of me?” “Of course not”, I say. “If you don’t want to go away that’s your decision. I just want you to be truthful with yourself as to the real reason why. I don’t want you to regret it years later like I do. I never lived on my own once in my entire life. I went from my father’s house to my husband’s house and at 47 years old, I still regret that I didn’t go away to school”
Then I look around at the mess, the burned frying pans left in the sink, the laundry all over her room, the no job all summer and annoying me for money, laying around doing nothing, etc, etc, and I think, “yeah, maybe I AM trying to get rid of her” Then I feel like s**t.
Does any of this make sense???

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My senior bound DD is acting the same way, she finally admitted a few weeks ago that she wants to take a semester off. The pressure of 12 straight years of school is too much, and she wants to take some time to just work at her minimum wage job to save money for college. Honestly, I pushed her into admitting it, told her how I wasted time and money because I wasn't ready for college and wound up failing classes that I should have aced no problem.
Don't feel bad about how you feel though, at worst you just want her to grow up and act her age. I would demand she start taking care of herself (get a job, get better grades) and the house (clean up after herself and do extra to help your family). Making her responsible is nothing to feel bad about, it's just helping her to become an adult.
Good luck!
I have two thoughts - first, it might help you to do some soul searching about your own choices - I find myself sometimes worried DD will make a wrong choice - and some of them are choices I made too - it helps me to be honest with myself about where my fear comes from.
Also, it may be that the idea of "moving away" and "starting college" is too scary for your DD - those are both big steps, and she may not be ready to do both at the same time. It sounds like she's only an OK student - and dragging her heels about looking at colleges may be her way of saying she's nervous about her ability to do well in college or her being unsure of what she wants to study. From your post it sounds like she *does* need to move away from home, though. The independence might do her some good in terms of maturity. Maybe next year you can help her find an apartment with a couple of friends and take a year off before looking at college. Or at least have this discussion with her - how would she feel about having this as a choice?
HTH
Sue
Ramona Mom to 2 great kids and wife to one wonderful hubby since 1990!
From my experience with the oldest, I would say she doesnt want to go to college; she is doing what has been expected of her
Community college and living at home sounds like a good option for this kiddo. Otherwise, you are risking extra expenses for college that never pans out or the 5/6 year degree from indecision, switching majors, and not enough of the correct credits
DH and I loved college; we loved the dorms; we even loved the food!
So far, none of our kids are like us. DS1 dropped out-has returned part time-the thought of full time school simply holds no appeal for him although the real world experience convinced him he needed a degree
DS2 will likely get at least a bachelors as he has figured out this is supported living with a group of like minded peers and all you have to do is go to school. Still, hated the dorms
They aren't us.
And it's really hard to grasp that at times. I see myself and DH in them with physical characteristics and general personality patterns and I think I know them so well.....but I don't.
Let her make her choices and support them(within reason)Try not to guide her even if she seems to have no idea what she wants to do. Sometimes they just dont want to disappoint us by telling us what they really want
My first thought is to ask yourself why she wants to go to college. Does she have a set career goal in mind that requires a college education? Does she value education in general to where a liberal arts degree would her desire? Or does she want to go because it's expected, by you, society, friends etc..?
Secondly.. She doesn't have to live on campus to experience "real college life". I graduated from four years of college, which I paid for myself. I lived at home and even if I didn't, I wouldn't have had time for so called "real college life". I was too busy studying and working. But I enjoyed my college experience, I went to football games, hockey games, concerts, film reviews and gallery openings. I attended pep rallies and protests and I met friends for coffee, study groups etc.. I attended one college party and didn't find it appealing at all. I had too much self respect and was too motivated to do that sort of thing every weekend.
My husband, who did live on campus, moved off campus to get away from the parties of "real college life" around him. It was too much of a distraction from his studies.
Third. According to Time Magazine, 60% of students who enter into a BA program fail to complete their degrees and 1/2 of those students flunk out or drop out their freshman year. If you don't like the conditions and lack of responsiblity and priorities that she's been showing at home, why would you push to send her to school without some skills and priorties in place first? I know you want her to take that next big step, but it sounds like she still needs the training wheels. Have you considered a local community college for a couple of years to get her on track, motivated and prioritized first?
stacy
It's not that bad to want your kids to leave home sometimes. My DD is going to college in Sept. and although I know I'll miss her, part of me will be happy when she's gone and I don't have to listen for her to come home late at night, have extra towels to wash, have her shoes all over the lving room, etc. I would make your DD clean up after herself, though, and it's too bad she didn't get a job. If she wants money, don't just give it out, make it conditional on doing some extra chores around the house.
My DD was just like me--she couldn't wait to go away to college, is very motivated in school, knows (at least she thinks she does) what she wants to do. In fact, there was one college she looked at that was very close to home. It was a private school, to the tuition was high. She did get a scholarsip for 50% of the tuition, but still I told her that I couldn't see paying an extra $10,000 per year for her to live away at a college that's 15 mins. from the house. But she said there was no way she wanted to live at home and I could understand that.
On the other hand, my nephew is 20 and he still lives at home and attends a local college. He was never that great a student. He has always worked, has a girlfriend and even though he went to a very small commuter college, he still got involved in their theater group, which I never even knew they had. So it's possible to live at home and go to college and still have a good experience.
I always get the greatest advice from you guys when I come on here. I know I can't force her to go, and I, truly, would be happy if she stayed. She is not a pig around the house, really, I'm just more fussy about neatness than she is. It's just an on-going disagreement we have over how neat a house should be.
We have already visited the 2 local schools she wanted to look at. Temple and Penn State both have local campuses no more than 25 minutes from our house. She would be thrilled to go to either one of those and will be absolutely applying to both. Of the other schools she's semi-interested in one is too far to live at home and she doesn't even want to go see it now because she does not want to live away from home. The other two are a bit out of our price range but if she got some financial aid she might be able to pay off her student loans by the time she retires .
I was thinking of this, tell me what you think. What if she only applies to the two schools she really wants to go to. If she's accepted, wonderful. If not, she could go to community college (also close to home) for a year and transfer later. Her father does not like this idea. I don't think he likes the idea of her in community college but I got my degree from there.
As to her and the house, I agree she needs to learn more responsibility around the house and this has been an on-going battle for years. She just fights me at every turn when it comes to cleaning up after herself and having respect for the house. I'll give you an example.
I had my kitchen remodeled a little over a year ago. The new sink is Corian in a light color to contrast the dark counter top. If you're not careful the sink can stain like if you leave spaghetti sauce in the sink over night. When this, eventually, did happen and I got mad she told me it was my fault for buying a sink that you can't leave stuff in. My response..."So that means I can never have anything nice because you can't take 10 seconds to rinse the sink???" This led to a big fight that eventually she was punished for but it still continues to happen.
She is so unlike I was. My mother was a pain in the butt about that stuff too (don't you hate it when we turn into our mothers?? ) but I couldn't stand it when she ragged on me so I just did what I was supposed to do to shut her up. My DD doesn't seem to care that I rag. She listens, takes her punishment, and moves on to do the same things again. Thank God it's only dirty laundry and dishes. Can you imagine the nightmare if it was something really serious?????
I can understand because my DD is a real slob. Now we have the addition of all the things she has bought for her dorm room in her room because there is no other place to store them. My DH will complain about DD leaving things around the house, but the basement is filled w/ all his junk. If is wasn't, she could store her dorm stuff down there. She & DS went on vacation w/ their dad this week and left on Sunday. Don't you think that she was doing loads of laundry on Sat. to get ready, even though she had all week and could have leisurely done a load a day? Maybe having to share a room w/ someone will make her a little neater, I can only hope.
Since Temple & Penn State are both really good schools, that's a good start. My cousin's son is going to Temple next year. He's from Long Island. So I assume this is a diff. campus from the one that's right in Philadelphia, right? So she could start off at the smaller campus and then transfer later?
My mother worked at the community college in the nursing dept, even though she wasn't a nurse. She worked in the audio-visual lab. I know that in MA (where I"m from) if you successfully get your AA degree from the CC, you will automatically be accepted to UMass. A lot of people are going to CC just because of the lower cost, not necessarily because they couldn't get into a better college. I think that I might apply to more than 2 schools, although my DD only applied to 4.
Lyn,
I was also thinking about something else. I'm sure there is some element there that because you never got to go away to college, you would like your DD to go and get some kind of vicarious excitement about it. I'm not judging you either. I know that I'm very excited about my DD going to college and I have a lot of those "when I was in college" talks because I had really fun memories of going away & living in the dorm.
I'll tell you one thing that has changed. I used to hate the caf food (except for dessert, which was always good). When DD came back from orientation, the first thing she said was "the food was so great and you can eat all that you want." Now it's more like a food court and they have all kinds of specialty foods, incl. sushi, diff. ethnic food, etc.
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