Me and Parents Fighting Over College!

Greybeard
Wed, 09 Feb 2005 21:34:42 +0000

This is an emotionally charged issue for both you and your parents. Parents who haven’t been able to save much for college sometimes feel very guilty about that. I remembering when I was your age, being aware that my parents had no savings, and considerable debts,and worrying about how I was possibly going to come up with the money to go to college. My parents had exactly the same worries.

My father had left school at the age of 17, after one semester of college. My mother hadn’t gone to college at all. I had checked out the college guides from our local library over and over again. I remember my father having a very frank discussion with me about finances; he wanted me to live at home for the first two years, and attend our local state university. I really didn’t want to live at home for two more years, and had read that there really was a lot of financial aid out there for students like me. My father wasn’t so sure; my sister had applied to one school early decision, and had received minimal financial aid.

We negotiated back and forth for a couple of years. Once, my high school paper (I was one of the editors) published a series of articles on birth control, we had a big argument in which he announced that I couldn’t ever go to any more parties with my friends, and that I would have to stay at home until I was 20, at which point he would determine if he thought I was mature enough to leave. I shouted at him for the only time in my life, through my tears. He said we’d discuss it later after we both calmed down. (I’ve never forgotten the date of that argument; in six weeks and three days, exactly 30 years will have passed, and neither of us ever mentioned it again to each other.)

College money is a big issue for parents, but it may not be the biggest issue. Seeing your children cross the threshhold into adulthood is a huge emotional passage for parents, perhaps especially so for the oldest child, and perhaps even more so for a mother who had to raise you by herself for a while.

So bear with them. Sure it’s your life, but your life in inexorably bound to theirs. You also can’t expect them to refrain from having an opinion about how to spend their money.

I had calm discussions about college plans with my parents, and I had the other kind, and believe me, calm is better. (Try to refrain from using terms like “self-centered idiots” to describe your parents, as it can cause them great pain, and does little to prove to them that you have the maturity to strike out on your own.)

I ended up starting college 50 miles or so from home. That really was far enough away to effectively break the apron strings. Two years later, when I transferred to a school across the country, it was a lot less of a shock to them than it would have been had I made that journey as a freshman.

You really don’t have to go all the way to Australia (Australia?!) to get the distance from your parents to grow into adulthood.