Financial Aid...UGH

laxtaxi
Wed, 16 Apr 2008 07:55:25 +0000

NMH_duh,

Speechless.

What comes to mind is a lesson that you might draw from this. Parents are not perfect. It seems like we know what we’re doing and have a plan, but the reality is we’re just imperfect humans who bump along, reacting to one stimulus after another. Our kids are not born with owner’s manuals.** We get better with time and experience, but of course our kids don’t wait to benefit from that experience - they continue to grow up and carry the bruises of our mistakes.

It’s likely that both truths exist for your parents - they do not feel comfortable with the expense but they do wish a boarding school education for you. Similarly, your truth is valid - it is incredibly disappointing, both because you cannot go after all the emotional energy expended and because you have to confront the reality that your parents are only people. Now might be a good time to ask yourself what you would have done differently if you were in their shoes. What conversations might you have had with your child, and at what point in the process?

**I have a theory, though, that the placenta contains the cosmic story of the universe and an explanation of our child’s place within it and instructions on how to raise him or her to meet that cosmic destiny. In 300 years they will read and wonder how we, in the 20th/early 21st century, could have been so stupid as to throw the placenta away! It will parallel how we view blood-letting, medical leeches and the like today. But I digress.