Datebook: Monday, August 20th ~ 2007
I am going through a bit of a “Mom” crisis right now.
On Saturday, I am taking my son to the University of Maryland where he will be living in an honors dorm for his freshman year. He is majoring in Biomedical Engineering and his schedule looks like Stephen Hawking designed it. Math apparently is truly infinite as he is starting with Calculus II—looking at the textbook ($145.00) makes me want to reach for the Calamine Lotion.
But, with all the Chemistry, Labs, Biomedical introductions, there is not one English class.
No Shakespeare, no Proust, no Eliot.
“Mom,” he answers my amazed look, “It’s not like I could ever use any of that stuff.”
“Oh, really! The greatest writer of all time. The Bard--who invented, inverted and invoked the written language. The man whose insight into the heart, the spirit, and the soul holds the key to all human interaction?”
“He would be the one. I guess if I’m ever a Prince in Denmark, I could do a Sparknotes version, but until then—not high on my list.”
What is high on his list appears to be decorating his dorm room in Beer Pong posters and a newly purchased Captain Morgan bar stool.
After Saturday I am powerless to protect him or mediate what he puts into his newly acquired 3.0 cubic foot refrigerator.
My daughter, living alone in her 580 square foot studio apartment, is also out in the harsh elements of life without my magic mom lasso, or invisibility cloak against heartache. It doesn’t seem to work once they reach 18 or move across the threshold.
And she could really use it now.
In a world that sometimes offers a caricature of youth living in excess and without direction, as skating parents we are typically dealing with the very opposite.
Our kids are focused, and driven, and self-motivating. And they seem to have some inner strength and insights that I wish some of our politicians possessed.
In the past few years the proudest moments I have had of my daughter have had little to do with the results of a competition or the medal count at the end. I watched her compete with a 101 degree fever when I felt like the worst mother in the world for even allowing her to take her guards off. I watched her compete after a fall in practice where I questioned if she would even be walking the next day. And I’ve watched her come back for rounds 2 or 3 with resolve and determination and give it all when I have quietly questioned my own ability and steadiness of spirit to have made the attempt if I were in her place.
The “mom crisis” comes from losing the power to protect them.
I can’t be there to make sure Power Aid is going in the dorm refrigerator.
I can’t stop the pain of a broken heart.
I can only do what we do as skating parents everyday-- Follow behind and gently remind them to take all the pieces with them as they go.
Of course, George Bernard Shaw said it better--“There are two tragedies in life. One is to lose your heart’s desire. The other is to gain it.”
Mombo
On Saturday, I am taking my son to the University of Maryland where he will be living in an honors dorm for his freshman year. He is majoring in Biomedical Engineering and his schedule looks like Stephen Hawking designed it. Math apparently is truly infinite as he is starting with Calculus II—looking at the textbook ($145.00) makes me want to reach for the Calamine Lotion.
But, with all the Chemistry, Labs, Biomedical introductions, there is not one English class.
No Shakespeare, no Proust, no Eliot.
“Mom,” he answers my amazed look, “It’s not like I could ever use any of that stuff.”
“Oh, really! The greatest writer of all time. The Bard--who invented, inverted and invoked the written language. The man whose insight into the heart, the spirit, and the soul holds the key to all human interaction?”
“He would be the one. I guess if I’m ever a Prince in Denmark, I could do a Sparknotes version, but until then—not high on my list.”
What is high on his list appears to be decorating his dorm room in Beer Pong posters and a newly purchased Captain Morgan bar stool.
After Saturday I am powerless to protect him or mediate what he puts into his newly acquired 3.0 cubic foot refrigerator.
My daughter, living alone in her 580 square foot studio apartment, is also out in the harsh elements of life without my magic mom lasso, or invisibility cloak against heartache. It doesn’t seem to work once they reach 18 or move across the threshold.
And she could really use it now.
In a world that sometimes offers a caricature of youth living in excess and without direction, as skating parents we are typically dealing with the very opposite.
Our kids are focused, and driven, and self-motivating. And they seem to have some inner strength and insights that I wish some of our politicians possessed.
In the past few years the proudest moments I have had of my daughter have had little to do with the results of a competition or the medal count at the end. I watched her compete with a 101 degree fever when I felt like the worst mother in the world for even allowing her to take her guards off. I watched her compete after a fall in practice where I questioned if she would even be walking the next day. And I’ve watched her come back for rounds 2 or 3 with resolve and determination and give it all when I have quietly questioned my own ability and steadiness of spirit to have made the attempt if I were in her place.
The “mom crisis” comes from losing the power to protect them.
I can’t be there to make sure Power Aid is going in the dorm refrigerator.
I can’t stop the pain of a broken heart.
I can only do what we do as skating parents everyday-- Follow behind and gently remind them to take all the pieces with them as they go.
Of course, George Bernard Shaw said it better--“There are two tragedies in life. One is to lose your heart’s desire. The other is to gain it.”
Mombo
posted by ice-dance.com @ 7:02 AM
1 Comments:
I just graduated from UMD and was an English major. If it helps any, I can tell you that all the good English classes are at least 300 level, meaning that your son would have to be an English major to take most of them. The 200-levels are pit-traps for nonmajors who need to fulfill the lit requirement and are usually survey lit classes that go into no depth whatsoever on the lit itself. He'd be better off reading on his own than taking one of those. :)
And if he's in one of the honors dorms on South Campus, he's living a stone's throw away from the English building, so maybe something will happen through osmosis. ;)
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