I had been painting the kitchen floor all day (checkerboard squares if you want to know). So for dinner, I had my son trapped in the car as we were driving home from picking up pizza. I decided to take advantage of the opportunity and share with him some insight. I expected my son to look over at me and sigh heavily as he usually does when I try talking to him about just about anything. But this time, he just lend over and gave me a hug. So this is what I said:
2500 freshmen will start college with you. Over night, all of you will become instant adults. There will be no one there to tell you what to do, when to do it, and where to go. This newfound freedom will go to your heads and many of you will lose your minds. There will be drinking. There will be drugs. Some of you will forget why you came to the university to begin with. Classes will be cut. Studying will be ignored. And you’re going to look around and think, “This must be okay because everybody is doing it and they are all fine.”
But they are not fine, only you won’t know this until the next year when you look around and find that of the 2500, only 1500 of you reminds. Those who have managed to party hardy and move on to their second year will once again live life as if now is all there is. But in another year, another 1000 of you will be gone.
If you make it to your third year then you are in the mere one fifth of the entering freshmen class who will actually graduate from college. You will have remembered that you are the first male child in your maternal tree to enter college. You will have shown due diligent in keeping your scholarship and making your family proud.
Now, don’t worry about remembering all of this because it’s a speech I intend to repeat several times between now and the day you go off to college.
Has anyone else out there received an unexpected hug after a lecture? If so, share!
I may have taken some creative liberties with the numbers. My mathematical ratios may be off. My point was that most kids entering college will not graduate, which is a sad fact.
In my state, a student gets 120 hours to complete their major. That equates to a four year plan. You can go over that but then you would have to pay out of state tuition. The two flagship schools in my state are massive and have six year grads rates of 60% and 80%. On average the grad rate in my state is 40%. However, I feel this is getting a little off topic. Warm and fuzzy moments anyone?
Good grief, don’t get bogged down in the details of this one! The unexpected hug is the point, not the rest of it! Those unexpected hugs are the best part of parenting.
Love this: “Now, don’t worry about remembering all of this because it’s a speech I intend to repeat several times between now and the day you go off to college.”
No wonder your kid gave you a big hug! Your kid really gets you, and it is clear that you really get your kid!
I’m not too worried about kids dropping out to enter local politics.
The speech is worthwhile. I give advice to kids all the time about going to class (which I had some challenges at). The problem is that there is an unstable equilibrium. The ones who attend class daily always believe they are “behind” and need to work hard to catch up. The ones who take a cavalier attitude about class attendance always think they’ll step on the gas late in the term and catch up, but they won’t be able to, because they misunderestimate how far behind they’ve gotten.
Making the family proud is a decent goal, but a better one is to graduate with the highest grades you can achieve so that you don’t have to execute a three-year recovery plan to become eligible for the job you want, or the graduate school you’d like to attend.
One of my teammates gave a similar speech to us when he was a senior and we were freshmen, but it fell on my deaf ears.
@dadx, you have a point, but to give some perspective, when my generation went off to college, pride was a powerful motivator. We were on the cusp of the Civil Rights Movement and my class (I’m from a very small southern town) was charged with the responsibility of integrating white colleges. And the thing is, nearly all of us heeded that call. I remember I was even told what to major in. Today, many black kids, particularly young men, are not going to college and/or not finishing. Rarely do I hear black families calling on their kids to make the family proud or even honor the sacrifice of the past by succeeding in what they set out to do. If I guilt my son into succeeding, then that’s fine by me. I will support whatever major he choose, and I don’t care if he choose to play guitar on a street corner after he graduate to make a living, but not graduating cannot be an option.
I think it’s wonderful to be able to have moments when your kids really hears you. And to get a hug…well that would have made my heart swell. Good job, Mom! I’ve also never been above the guilt tripping to succeed. Whatever it takes!