Parents of the HS Class of 2026

Parents of HS Class of 20xx
5052

Ok, so this is a weird one…

My sister is an amazing aunt to my 2 daughters. My sister is a couple of yr younger than me, never been married, never had kids, never lived with a significant other. My kids are 17 and 19. And lately, for some reason I can’t quite figure out, my sister keeps talking to me about how my kids need to date, find a boyfriend, find a partner, and even tells me what type of person from a political point of view they should marry.

Um…what? Let’s have my 17 yr old become an adult first. And how about we let the 19 yr old figure out who she is first before we all start telling her what type of person to marry? Good grief. :joy:

The silver lining to the cloud is that she doesn’t appear yet to have the guts to lecture my kids about this. But she does want to tell me, in the meantime, about what type of person they should marry, how that person should vote in elections, how my daughters & their partners should run their households once in a committed relationship with another person, etc. OH. MY. GOSH…just stop.

I’ve told her that all of those decisions will be THEIR decisions to make and they don’t have to do things how we would, there’s more than 1 way to do things, and I’m not making the mistake that our mother did by lecturing one’s kids all the time about what one thinks of your kid’s life partner, etc., etc. But sure, Sis, if you feel that strongly about it all, go tell them yourself.

She won’t do that. :wink:

My sister has been sort of turbo about all of this in the past 2 weeks since certain events occurred here in the US. Oh boy. In the meantime, I’ve got a million other things that we’re juggling in our immediate family. I don’t have time for this other nonsense.

So I think I’m going to have to strictly follow my own advice and do a lot of “smile and nod” with a side dish of “that’ll be for my kids to figure out” as well. :joy:

I’m open to ideas or suggestions on this one. I know how to handle the normal “Ew, why is your kid applying THERE?” question but all of this marriage talk? Holy cow.

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5053

I would be tempted to say, “So, Sis, are you searching for that type of partner, too? How are you going about it? Best of luck with that.”

Or, “I would have hated it if someone had tried to tell me who to date, so I’m definitely not going to do that to my kids.”

:rofl:

Family politics are so fun, lol.

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5054

Gotta catch ‘em all!

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5055

I would not know how to reply to that other than what you said - this is her (their) life to live and that’s part of the excitement of life. D26 is one of the few of her friends not dating. And I actually love that she is learning through watching her friends trials and tribulations of dating before she jumps in there someday.

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5056

You’re politer than I’d be. “It’s no-one’s business but theirs”. End of story. If she brings it up again, “gee isn’t this (x) weather something, huh?”

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5057

My D22 is at Georgetown, and she did try to get into this competitive consulting club for two years, but she didn’t make it. She’s an International Politics major and she didn’t really have much concept of business to begin with and I am sure that there were many applicants from business majors. I also think that networking might’ve played more parts in getting into those clubs. Yes, some clubs are really competitive, but I think it’s overblown that it shouldn’t even be a big deal if you don’t get into one of those clubs. What matters more is that not being in those clubs didn’t have any impact at all in her college life. She was happy at other clubs that she joined and has made so many lifelong friends in college. To top it off, she’s accepted an offer from one of MBB to start in 2026.

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5058

I just spent the last four days helping D26 dig out of the hole she created in her most challenging class – it was a ton of work to catch up on, and honestly I can see why she was overwhelmed. Wish she hadn’t shut down and had just asked for help initially because then she wouldn’t be in this mess, but alas. Onward.

I am mentally exhausted tonight, and then my S25 just texted me. Normally when he asks “can you help me with this?” – I have to brace myself, because who knows what he’ll ask.

But this one I could handle. And I laughed for five minutes. :rofl:

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5059

So sorry to hear that!

My D26 has been struggling in Physics C. Our HS used to have a fantastic Physics C teacher… but this year we have a brand new teacher. We do not think he had any prior teaching experience. All of the students in the class have been saying, “He seems to be a really nice guy, but…” No one understands the material he teaches, and they are also not getting proper feedback because it takes weeks for him to grade anything. They think he is operating with the assumption that everyone has already had calculus, but at our HS, only seniors take calculus… so his entire class is concurrently in Calc BC (and at our HS, they do not take AB before BC, it is all packed into the one year).

D has been trying to teach herself the material prior to her teacher covering it, so that she will be able to follow what he is talking about, but there is no syllabus to guide her. She’s been talking through some stuff with S23 (an engineering student, who LOVED this class when it was taught by the prior teacher), but that only goes so far. We are all very frustrated.

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5060

Sir this is a wendys!

But on the real side IMO when people suddenly want to give advice it’s not for the person getting the advice it’s more for their past self. They wish someone would have given them that particular piece of advice when they were at that stage of life. They don’t stop and consider their advice might not be applicable. Maybe your sister had dated someone and broke up over political views but didn’t want to tell you ? Just my 0.02c.

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5061

D26’s AP Spanish class last year was kind of like this…teacher brand new to teaching, nice guy and all but she didn’t learn anything new in Spanish last year. The first month and a half of the school year, the teacher talked about linguistics and nothing about Spanish.

Last year was, frankly, a total wash in that class. It was frustrating. Nothing we could do about it. Totally understand your frustration!

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5062

Ugh, that sounds like a no-win situation. Is the teacher really young, if he seems to have no prior experience?

My D26 had a rough time in AP Physics last year – and that was only Physics 1, not C. (She was in Calc AB concurrently, but I think Physics 1 only uses algebra? Unsure.) But similar issue with a terrible teacher, who ended up leaving the school at Thanksgiving. We think there were enough complaints that he was asked to leave, but I don’t know for sure. But the department chair ended up stepping in and teaching the remainder of the class, which was so much better.

Hope the class improves for your kid somehow!

D26 is in a project-based STEM class where she spends the entire year on one project. The beginning stages are hard – justifying the problem, identifying prior solution attempts, design specifications, etc. Each of these is like a 10-page document with many sub-categories and spreadsheets and flow charts and what not, and if you get behind, well, you’re toast. This Thursday she has a 4-min presentation to a teacher panel on the work done to date, and then she has to turn in some big portfolio next Wednesday for a major grade.

She is finally caught up as of late tonight, but then she has to crunch and get the PowerPoint done tomorrow and practice her presentation tomorrow night. I think she’ll be fine now that she actually has all the pieces, but geez. It makes me nervous to send her off to college.

5063

Teaching appears to be a second career for him. From looking at his linkedin, it looks like his previous jobs were in program management and sales at software companies, and he got a teaching credential last year.

5064

Ahh okay, that makes sense. And good for him, but really frustrating for his students if he’s not a good teacher. :slightly_frowning_face:

5065

The previous physics teacher was so wonderful. Not only a gifted and experienced teacher… he also did all kinds of fun and creative things with the students (like having them make hilarious music videos about physics concepts). It breaks my heart that D doesn’t get the physics teacher who literally changed S23’s life direction… seriously, that class was so great it single handedly convinced my S that he wanted to do engineering, and then made S’s freshman year at UCB relatively easy, because the teacher was so skilled that he was able to cover lots of extra physics and math in that class that isn’t even in the normal Physics C syllabus.

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5066

Are any of your kids expressing a lot of fear and anxiety over the state of our country? S26 has always been pretty into politics, but since tRump came back around in January, he has been borderline obsessed with talking about how terrible things are. He believes our democracy is dead and that there will not be another election for him to vote in when he is 18 because we are now under an authoritarian regime. While I agree that things are terrible I also feel compelled to try to slip a bit of optimism and hope into his thinking. He usually tells me I am deluding myself. Mostly, I try to steer him away from politics, and he does have other interests and activities to keep him occupied, but the latest news about the government shut down has spun him up again. If your children are similarly inclined, how have you helped them cope and try to keep some perspective?

PS, sorry if this is too political.

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