Dear Mom

At some point in my teaching career I found an amusing letter, presumably written by a college student to her parents during midterms. It went into great detail about her new boyfriend, her recently-discovered pregnancy, her punk-rock hairdo (this was sometime in the 90s, I think), and many other things sure to make her parents cringe. In the last paragraph, she said she was kidding about all the earlier stuff; she had just said all of that in an attempt to put her grades into perspective. I sometimes read this letter aloud to my students, and they too found it amusing.

I was reminded of this tonight after talking with my youngest son. His college screwed up his schedule -- I am pretty sure there hasn't been a single thing they've gotten right since we first associated ourselves with them -- and instead of having him start his on-campus classes tomorrow (as we thought), the school has him down as doing another month of online classes and starting on campus next month. He is thinking that this might be a good thing, even though his student advisor asked him if he wanted to take this path and he said no. I, on the other hand, am ready to drive right back down there and show up in the enrollment office and ask them what their problem is. The whole point of having an accellerated schedule is to finish sooner. Not only does this set back his graduation date, but also it stretches out the length of time I'm paying for his apartment. Probably only by a month, but that's not the point. The point is that everything with this place is a problem. I just told him to work it out.

Then he tells me that one of his and his girlfriend's cats is going to stay with him for a while. Wait a minute! Isn't that the cat that shits on the furniture? Oh, well, she (the cat) is just going to have a one-week trial period and then she'll probably go back and forth. How many cat shits does it take to ruin a mattress or sofa? In my mind, just one. Oh, lord. I can feel my blood pressure rising. This is where I have a hard time laying down the law. If I want him to be responsible for himself (and his apartment), how much should I say? If I want him to learn to be assertive and do well in school, should I command him to start on-campus classes tomorrow? I just don't know. And I'm asking rhetorically, so don't bother to tell me. I won't listen. But thanks for letting me vent.