Three years ago my eldest child and I took a road trip to look at colleges. When I was her age my parents didn’t engage in this right of passage. I vaguely remember someone talking to my senior class about opportunities at colleges on the West Coast. At the time I was in New Hampshire, and California--which I’d fallen in love with after spending a month in Big Sur at a poetry-writing workshop--seemed like just the ticket for this antsy, East Coast liberal, actress and writer-to-be.

So after perusing a couple brochures, applying to random schools and receiving an acceptance to a school in Stockton, I headed out west. The University of the Pacific (it sounded wet) was as far from my family as I considered reasonable. My parents saw the school the same day I did, at orientation. (Meanwhile they ruined my plan by also moving west, within three hours of me).

Stockton is the armpit of California (literally, look at a map). As is appropriate it’s also a foggy, muggy, agri-town about an hour from the coast, and frankly in the late ‘70s, a pretty crummy place. Looking back, any of the other schools to which I’d been accepted probably would have been a better fit. I hated it, naturally. Weaned on thick, green forests, rivers and the hills of northern New England, in blue jeans, tee shirts and flannel, I could find no synchronicity on this suburban campus of color coordination, make-up, polyester, fast food and sororities.

Determined my daughters would not make the same mistakes, I committed myself to working with them on their higher education quests. The college search is actually a full time job, and it’s no wonder my parents opted out of it. The kid has to study for SATS and ACT, taking them more than once if necessary. Together (if you're lucky) parent and child cull through masses of brochures, get letters that promise the moon, fill out scholarship applications and FAFSA (oy, this is quite the challenge) and then come the visits. Try scheduling that when you’re working and have other obligations; the kid is in school, on teams, has an after school job and maybe even a life. Then one has to consider the costs of airfare, car rentals, meals and hotels.

When my eldest went off to the University of Oregon, my sense was that after all the work I’d done to get her there it was actually me who deserved  a four-year educational vacation. However, unlike me at her age, she was homesick beyond comprehension.

(You can’t convince kids of the validity of the college experience. It just is. College can be the greatest four years yet lived. The years that follow are hard, hard, hard. Go to the right school and your friends, your future and career can have a brighter outlook).

At any rate, my (mommy-sick) daughter did not have a good experience and within two years, she transferred to a university just two hours away from home. We love being able to see each other often so it’s worked out fine in the long run.

But here we go again. My youngest child graduates next month. Again I am struck with the crazy situation that is called senior year in high school, keep them in school, going to classes, doing homework and alive. However, unlike childbirth, it’s no simpler the second time. In fact, in many ways it appears worse since we’re working in an economic vacuum. But here’s the thing, y’all, this daughter is a good student, been involved, has done community service, her teachers love her, and to top it all off she wants to be a nurse. Yet, there is nothing for her. No scholarships, no grants, no money whatsoever. A virtual single mother, I was laid off recently and even this change of status doesn’t help her.

I went back east to visit friends recently and was stunned to discover that all their kids are receiving scholarships and grants. I was struck then by all the things that do make a difference in our kids lives: private schools versus public. Need versus merit. Sports versus art. Middle versus upper class. These things matter in ways that feel unfair, lopsided and frightening, and adds to the guilt some parents feel about how their choices affect their children.

 

At any rate we spent a rainy night in Salt Lake City the other day after touring the utterly gigantic University of Utah. Next we’re off to San Francisco and Sonoma. It all costs me money I don’t have and there’s never a guarantee, as I discovered with my other daughter.

I just want to see her fall in love and not just settle. Is that so much to ask for your kid? To have a chance, a possibility, a scent of inspiration that could lead to fulfillment? How do you ever know? You can force on them only so much and the rest is dependent on the child, and the complexities of the world. A child might head to a year abroad in Italy only to have her end up on trail for the murder of her housemate. Lacking money, you can opt for junior college in a small town like Twin Falls, Idaho and watch, as she becomes a state senator. Who knows? Parenting is a crapshoot and after a lifetime of working, struggling and sacrificing for them, anything can (and will) happen. Que sera sera.

After all the fretting over the right or wrong school, the climate, the opportunities, the money, parents just hope a life of grace and happiness is the result. Just hand me a martini when it’s done, please.