There are only two weeks left of Junior year! What a year it's been — and it's almost over. In fact, I'd be waving my arms and cheering and doing a Snoopy dance if it weren't for the fact that between my daughter and the happy day she walks out of the high school for a much-needed summer break are final exams, a huge research paper and a strange but elaborate role play exercise about college admissions.
So many milestones. Although my daughter earned her driver's license last year (talk about a Snoopy dance!), it wasn't until recent months that she was permitted to drive her friends anywhere. School, concerts, laser tag, the stable. Suffice it to say she has enjoyed that particular privilege enormously. We left her alone overnight for the first time. (Thanks to social media and a helpful other-mother, I was kept abreast of the goings on at our house. But, my daughter and I have agreed not to talk about that anymore.) She took SATs, ACTs, two APs (and a partridge in a pear tree). We toured a couple of colleges in earnest.
And, whether it was deliberate or not, for better or worse, I've stopped micromanaging her homework.
Every concerned mom I know has to balance how much she helps. We all draw the line at different places. Some well-meaning parents I know have ghost-written papers (and even college essays). On the other hand, in a handful of particularly stressful situations, I've had (non-parent) friends encourage me to "let her fail," asserting that it would teach her a lesson and build character. My instinct has always been somewhere in between. I'm happy to edit and proofread, but not to write. I'll quiz her on history or science facts even when I'm bleary-eyed with fatigue. I'll gladly contribute my time as well as money to posters and dioramas. I've been known to run out for glue sticks and markers or buy the Kindle version of a book many hours after the library's closed.
'Pains me to admit it, but it's in my nature to nag. Or maybe it's just one of those skills we magically acquire after fourteen hours of knee-buckling labor. At any rate, for the past several years, much of my daughter and my conversation together has gone something like this ...
Me: What's your homework like tonight?
Her: Meh.
Me: Do you have much?
Her: Some.
Me: Well, why don't you get started and I'll bring you a snack.
Her: K.
This is followed by more specific check-ins as the evening wears on.
Me: How's the math coming?
Me: Do you need me to proof that paper?
Me: Can I quiz you on your French?
Me: Have you started studying for Physics yet?
(I won't waste your time with her monosyllabic answers. I'm sure you can fill in those blanks yourself.)
Lately, I've nagged a lot less. I may be overtired (or simply "over it"). Or it may be that I've started to trust her. Either way, I think we're both relieved by my newfound lack of involvement.
The other day, I was cleaning up her room for her (another thing I've been nagging about less). I was straightening her desk which was absolutely covered. My job was to make piles that would look a little neater. But, be assured I know better than to throw anything away. What looks like scrap paper with scribbles could actually be the autographs of a favorite band. A used Dunkin' Donuts cup might have sentimental value. The number she wore on her horse's bridle in a recent competition will be added to her collection of similar numbers from similar competitions.
Under the aforementioned treasures, I found a list that included every school deadline between now and the end of the year. It was organized as a calendar and color-coded by subject. At first, ever the queen of organization, I was proud of the effort, not to mention the magic markers, that went into this list. Then, my admiration turned to anxiety as I saw assignments I hadn't heard about before. Was she really going to have an eleven-page paper ready in two days? Had she started studying for pre-calc?
I stopped myself and took a deep breath. She's on top of it, I reminded myself. After all, she's made it this far.
And, just look how pretty her list is.
If you enjoyed this post, I invite you to order a copy of my book Lovin' the Alien at www.lovinthealien.com.
My daughter hates me.
This in and of itself isn't particularly newsworthy. Or unique to me. In fact, my mom mafia and I exchange texts to that effect fairly frequently. If you don't believe the old adage "there's a fine line between love and hate," just have a teenager. And wait a minute.
So, this time I'm the target of her anger and ire because I'm forcing my daughter (practically at gunpoint, if you ask her) to go to SAT prep classes. That's right, I've actually spent significant money to assure that she does well on her standardized tests so she can get into a good college and acquire a fine education which will help her build a more productive, profitable and pleasurable life. Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.
Man, I suck.
She says "It's not fair." Guess what? I totally agree. But, guess what else? I didn't create the system.
If it were up to me, things would be different. I wish colleges had the luxury to look at people before numbers. That they could put individual strengths and passions and personality ahead of quantitative scores. IMHO, the only thing the so-called "aptitude test" measures is a student's skill at taking aptitude tests.
Another thing, I hate the fact that the system contributes to the chasm between haves and have-nots in our society. Let's face it, there are many students out there who don't have access to these dreaded prep programs. They are expensive and as such, they are exclusionary. In essence, students who probably already have an advantage based on where they live and the schools they have access to also end up with better test scores.
I felt the sting of this myself way back when. I went to a fabulous school, and my own test scores were absolutely respectable. But, some friends who were more affluent were able to afford private tutoring and raise their scores. Academically competitive by nature, I resented this to no end. In fact, I sounded exactly like my daughter.
"It's not fair."
So, thirty-five years later, my daughter is hating me for something that I feel absolutely trapped into doing. I don't believe in the system; I think it's grossly biased and I resent spending the money (believe me, even if my daughter doesn't, I can think of many, many, many things I would have rather used the money for).
Kids in our upper middle-class Boston suburb do test prep. It's just a given. And, yes, I'm going along with it. Because, until the system changes, the stakes are too high. I'll be the first to admit that I'm being a wimp about this. But, I'll also know that I've done what I could to ensure that my daughter gets into the best school she can.
I'm sorry that the summer classes, practice tests, homework problems and fairly incompetent instructor are so tedious and frustrating. I'm sorry that my daughter hates me. However, as I recently reminded her, if she made a list of all the reasons she has to love me and lined it up against a list of reasons to hate me, I'm fairly confident that the first column would be longer. Like, a lot longer.
When she was a couple of weeks old (and I was still suffering some postpartum blues), I worried that her newborn unresponsiveness was a reflection of her (lack of) affection for me. A compassionate coworker of mine had more parenting experience than I did; he had a teenage daughter at home.
"I think she hates me," I confided.
"No," he told me gently "She doesn't hate you ..."
"... But, she will."
If you enjoyed this post, I invite you to order a copy of my new book Lovin' the Alien at www.lovinthealien.com.
If you're the kind of person who likes organization and planning ahead, and if you're also the kind of person who suddenly finds herself with a teenage daughter ... well ... you can just kiss all that order good-bye. The thing to keep in mind is that your life and (especially) your schedule are no longer your own.
About three weeks ago, my daughter sent me a text from school. (This, btw, happens all the time. Not just with me and my daughter but with every mom and every daughter I know. It continues to surprise me that the school lets kids text while they're in class. Sheesh! But, I'll stop before I sound like an even older old lady than I actually am.) Here's the text:
can you sign me up for world history sat? i'm late so there will be a late fee
There was a little emoticon sad face referring, I assume, to the additional fee. (No "Hello," though. No "Thank you.")
I was walking when I received the message and I thought that thanks to the miracle of modern mobile I would be able to register her for the test from my phone.
Nope.
Turns out, when you go online to the College Board (the organization that manages all the standardized testing), you practically need security clearance from the CIA. Not only do they warn you that the process takes 20 minutes, but you have to upload an official photo of the test-taker (would that be the testee?). I didn't have one handy and when I went to get it, I timed out. So, the 20-minute process was more of a 38-minute process. The late fee wasn't so bad, but finding an available venue proved to be.
My daughter's high school was no longer available (read, "sold out," like a Rolling Stones concert, although probably quieter and with less drugs). None of the schools in a 5-mile radius were available. Or a 10-mile radius. Or 20. Or 50. I found a location in Rhode Island, one in New Hampshire, and one in Maine. So what did I do? Booked a different location in New York. It's my hometown and we were planning a visit anyway.
We drove down Friday afternoon, arriving at about 8:45 pm. My daughter had to arrive at the downtown high school early (early, early), so we went to bed soon after. The next morning, we took two subways (and an unexpected cab; one "local" turned out to be an "express") and arrived exactly when the official paperwork said to be there.
I guess the official paperwork didn't know what it was talking about. We stood outside the school (with about 1,200 other nervous teenagers) for 40 minutes. Finally, a guard came by and asked all the "subject SAT" people to go on in. I gave my girl a quick squeeze and headed off.
The test was supposed to be an hour. Some quick math and I predicted she's be done by about 9:45. This gave me 75 minutes to explore Chinatown and the lower Eastside. I timed it well and arrived back at our meeting place (Union Square park) at quarter to ten. In some ways (although not in the way that mattered most), my timing was perfect. I had just sat down when I received a text:
hi mom, it's me we haven't started yet
Uh-oh. I had at least another 60 minutes to kill. I bought an iced decaf with soy milk and trolled around the Nordstrom Rack, which was just opening. Eventually, I found a couple of those free newspapers and sat and read them. Finally (a mere four hours after we'd arrived for her one-hour test), I received the last text:
leaving now will meet you in park
'Turns out my daughter and another 35 students had spent the first two hours sitting in a school hallway (where my daughter had the pleasure of seeing not one, not two but three gigantic cockroaches). Apparently, they didn't have enough proctors. This was inconvenient for us, but would have been downright maddening if my daughter, like many of her fellow test-takers, had been there to take multiple exams.
This was her first SAT, and the way I look at it, the system let us down in more than a few ways.
Why did no one (neither her guidance counselor, who has her class schedule, or her AP World History teacher) clue us in to the fact that it would be a good idea to schedule the exam this spring? She learned about it, by accident, in the cafeteria. Thus the late fee (and proverbial fire drill).
Why did more than a thousand kids have to stand online outside the school when they had arrived on time, as requested?
Why were there not enough proctors?
And why were there more than enough cockroaches?
The SATs are terrifying enough. It seems to me that all the additional angst could have been avoided. Except, maybe the cockroaches. It's NYC, after all.
I think we'll stay closer to home the next time.
If you enjoyed this post, I invite you to order a copy of my new book Lovin' the Alien at www.lovinthealien.com.
The words "sleep deprivation" mean something very different to me now than they did sixteen years ago. (I'm awestruck, as I am so often these days, by the idea that I've been a mother for that many years.)
In 1997, I gave birth to a beautiful baby girl. Ten fingers, ten toes, perfectly normal in every way. You know those exceptional babies who sleep through the night practically from day one? That was her ...
Not!
We had late nights and early mornings, erratic midday naps and 2:00 a.m. feedings. By month six (MONTH SIX!), I was so perpetually tired that I briefly fell asleep driving in the Sumner Tunnel on my way into the office one morning. What can I say, the light was dim, the traffic barely moving. Luckily, a rather impatient Boston driver behind me sounded his horn before I ran into the tunnel's wall. Yikes.
That particular wake-up call (yes, pun intended, um, sorry) convinced me to try Dr. Ferber's infamous CIO or "cry it out" method. Through progressively longer intervals, you train your baby to "self-comfort." This means listening to them cry and resisting the urge (deep-rooted, instinctive, frrrrkin' primal, maternal urge) to go in. I lay with a pillow over my head through two of the longest nights of my life.
Sure enough, my daughter slept through the third and has done so ever after. My own sleep deprivation, happily, was a thing of the past.
That was then. This is now.
In our house these days, the person suffering from sleep deprivation is my now teenage daughter. Between endless amounts of homework, studying for exams, after school jobs and activities, and a minimal attempt at a social life, she doesn't have enough hours in the day. Sure, she has been known to procrastinate a bit (who hasn't?). But, compared to her peers, she's remarkably focused. It doesn't seem to matter. There is quite simply too much to do.
Add to this the fact that teens biologically need more sleep than adults. Everyone from the National Sleep Foundation to the Mayo Clinic asserts this — in no uncertain terms. In fact, it isn't just the quantity that's important for developing adolescents. It's also when they go to sleep. Unlike younger children or adults, their natural biorhythms and body temperature don't allow them to go to bed early. They naturally tire some time around or after 11:00 pm.
Here's a typical dialogue in our house:
Teen: I'm soooooooo tired.
Parent: You need to go to bed earlier.
Teen: That soooooooo won't help.
No matter how much it may pain me to admit it, my daughter's right. On the odd chance that her schoolwork was actually done by 8:00 or 9:00, it wouldn't solve the problem. She would lie awake and still be exhaustedly unable to get up at 6:30 the next day.
And, that's the other issue. Teens need more sleep. Teens don't tire until late evening. Do the math ... high school classes that start before 8:00 am are not going to make for a success story. Neither are early-morning standardized tests, like last week's PSATs at 7:45. Recent studies have proven that scores go up when teens get up later.
Well, duh!
This is what kills me. The science is there. Sleep deprivation is not just an inconvenience. It's damaging and dangerous (heck, it's recognized — and condemned — as a form of political and military torture). We're all so concerned about improving student outcomes, competing on the global stage, no child left behind ... blah, blah, blah. I propose the following:
• Adjust high school hours to better suit the needs (the actual bi-o-lo-gy) of high school students
• Decrease the amount of homework for these poor kids (I'm definitely of the "longer school day" school of thought myself)
• Schedule standardized tests like PSATs and SATs at hours when students are at their peak performance (hint, that would not mean at dawn)
To me this is all common sense. Then again, as Voltaire and Horace Greeley both observed ...
"Common sense is not so common."
If you enjoyed this post, order a copy of my new book Lovin' the Alien at www.lovinthealien.com.
