It’s
hard to let our kids go. The day our babies head out on
their own, whether in the direction of their own apartment
or a college dorm room, is a tough one for any parent.
When
the time came for our first chick to fly off on her own,
David escorted her to college while I stayed home to tend
the nest. I bravely smiled and waved as I deposited them
on the plane -- then sat in my car in the airport parking
lot and cried like Tammy Faye Bakker on the second day of
her period. It was a regular air-
sucking, mascara-dripping,
please-God-nobody-see-me sob fest. Not my finest moment.
Back at home
with the two remaining chicks, I thankfully was able to focus
my helicopter mom hover on their antics. It was a darn good thing
they needed me because I might have followed chick one to college.
Life went
on as well as could be expected until my daughter’s first
semester ended and I didn’t have access to grades. Seriously?
I’m paying tens of thousands of dollars for college and I
DON’T EVEN GET TO SEE THE GRADES?! WTH? When I spoke to my
daughter about it, I was told, “Duh, Mom, I’m an adult
now and you can’t just look at my records.”
This makes
sense now that I’m going through the college experience as
a parent for a third round -- but at the time the helicopter mom
in me bristled. After all, any hovering mother knows that grades
are a large indicator -- a snapshot of how a kid’s life is
going. But really, is it our business once they go to college?
Turns out
my daughter was correct (damn!). College students are protected
by the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) which
expressly forbids a college or university to disclose grades to
parents. Many institutions offer a waver for the students to sign
allowing parents access, but personally, I would think long and
hard before asking my kid to do this. This is a time in their
lives when a bit of privacy goes a long way towards self reliance
and maturity.
According
to the University of Michigan website:
“The
best approach is to ask your son or daughter directly (about grades).
Communicating with young adults can be a challenge. They’re
not always as forthcoming as we would like. The college years,
however, are a period of remarkable growth and maturation. The
ability and willingness of students to share information and insights
usually grows, especially as they acquire the confidence that
comes with assuming greater responsibility for their own lives.”
In my case,
the U of M website advice hits the mark dead-on. Chick one strutted
off to college as an “I know everything” teenager prepared
for world domination. Imagine my shock when I received a phone
call during her sophomore year asking my opinion on what classes
she should take. She hadn't asked for my thoughts on ANYTHING
since The Great Puberty Wars. The year off from helicoptering
had done us both a lot of good and I was ecstatic over my new
role as an enthusiastic sounding board. Go figure, I was able
to just listen and allow her to sort things out for herself. Progress,
indeed.
FERPA restrictions
and sage advice from universities aside, professors receive phone
calls and emails from parents to discuss grades. Even I think
this a huge breech of protocol and I’m one of the biggest
crazy recovering helicopter moms there is.
So I wondered,
is it ever appropriate for a parent to contact a professor?
“No,”
says Ohio State Lecturer Jason Payne, “Once you are in college,
you are supposed to be an adult.”
Nevertheless,
Payne does receive calls, many times irate, from parents. He recounted
a story...continue
reading > >
Waves crashing against the craggy coast, mist drifting up
mountains that rise abruptly from the sea, bridges impossibly
clinging to cliffs -- we'd seen the iconic photos of the California
shore along the Pacific Coast Highway. The images look unbelievable,
but they are real and they are spectacular. This is Big Sur.
The name Big Sur dates back to the Spanish explorers who
dubbed
this area “el sur grande” meaning “the big
south.” Sounds a little like a college football conference
but really, this land IS big, sir.
This region has no official borders but is loosely considered
the column of coast flanked by mountaintop and ocean meandering
between Carmel and
San
Simeon. Running about ninety miles, it seems custom made for a great
day's drive when including stops for sightseeing and sustenance.
For
most of the trip we were within sight of the ocean and often
looking straight down on it. It can make a body queasy. The
Pacific Coast Highway, California State Highway 1, is a remarkable
piece of road. Thirty three bridges connect one wickedly winding
section of cliff clinging roadway to the next. It's slow going
and imperative to keep the old eyeballs glued to the blacktop
-- hard to
do considering
the other viewing opportunities. More than once Veronica gave me
a gentle reminder that certain death may be impending if I didn't
focus... OK, some not so gentle, depending on how many wheels were
hanging ...continue
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GypsyNesting
in Your Own Backyard
As
much as we love our GypsyNester lifestyle, we understand that
chucking it all and hitting the highway is not something everybody
can do. Many of us have ties that can make it difficult --
if not impossible -- to pull that off. With that in mind,
we like to periodically point out that there are plenty of
great GypsyNesting opportunities right in your own backyard.
A plethora of possibilities are playing out nearby no matter
where you call home. You just have to know where to look.
Watch for signs, look for fliers or peruse the local press.
Check the newspaper's
Living
or Entertainment sections or pick up the area's free weekly
“What's Happening” type
magazine.
While traveling, periodically preconceived notions are blown
totally out of the water once a place is visited in person.
Our most recent notion deconstruction locomotion occurred
along a rocky stretch of the California coast just south of
San Francisco.
Carmel-by-the-Sea,
as anticipated, is a quaint, artsy, picturesque little hamlet on
the shore, but what's up with all of the peculiar canine cordiality
and electing such a tough hombre as mayor?
In
nearby Monterey, the hustler-and-tough-guy laden Cannery Row
of John Steinbeck fame we expected to encounter is virtually
unrecognizable in today's colorful collection restaurants,
shops and tourist traps.
Established in 1770, Monterey served as California's capital
from 1777 to 1849 while a part of Spain and Mexico. Through
the years many of the
state's “firsts”
happened here. The first printing press, newspaper, theater, public
school and library all were in Monterey.
To
aid the curious tourist, the city created the Path of History
in the area around downtown. Following the dotted line from
the Custom House Plaza through flourishing gardens and historic
buildings, we were treated to the rich past of an important
city. A highlight was the chance to walk on a section of the
last whalebone sidewalk in the United States. That's right,
there was a time when whaling was so common that the sidewalks
were paved with their bones, or at least the bones not being
used as stays in the corset torture...continue
reading > >
It
seems to me that a good number of folks who have boomerang
"kids" may actually want them to return. But are
we really doing our offspring any favors by allowing the indefinite
extension of childhood?
Let's think about this. Where did you live when you were first
starting out? I'll bet it wasn't quite the Taj Mahal.
Our first place was a one bedroom former screened-in porch
that had all the weather
proofing of
the average wiffle ball. It was a veritable private zoo of urban
vermin -- and we were glad to have it. We were proud and happy to
be on our own.
Smacking my head on the five foot high kitchen ceiling/outside stairwell
overhang a few hundred times made me really appreciate the move
up to some better digs.
We rejoiced
in every improvement of our living conditions --because we worked
for them. Moving into a real apartment, then a duplex until we
finally saved up enough to make the down payment for an assumed
loan on an about-to-be-repossessed starter home.
The place
was a cat pee saturated disaster but we worked like crazy on that
funky little domicile until it was quite livable and we had real
pride of ownership. Who am I to deny my offspring those same pleasures?
OK,
show of hands. How many of us first heard of Yosemite from
Looney Tunes? C'mon, reach fer the sky fragnabbit! On those
childhood Saturday
mornings Yosemite
Sam introduced
us to the name but he had nothing to do with the National Park.
Friz Freleng just liked the plumb western sound of California's
premier park for his loud-mouthed, sourdough, going-off-all-half-cocked,
six-shootin' little fella. Fifty-odd years of Saturdays later yer
flea bitten GypsyNestin' varmints finally met Sam's namesake.
Coming into America's second National Park from the south,
on route 41, offers a sensational entrance to the valley.
Our first glimpse of Yosemite was from the famous Tunnel View.
Engineers specifically laid out the tunnel when building the
road to create an incredible
scene framing
the Yosemite Valley to perfection. Almost looks as if the view was
painted on the mountainside by...continue
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“In my opinion, anyone who would refer to children
in such a disgusting and disrespectful way (adult or not)
is an emotionally bankrupt shell of a person..."
BAM!
My first hate mail.
I read
a lot of blogs. Any of them worth their salt raise strong
emotion and spark debate on their message boards. Sometimes
it can get a bit heated, but makes for a nice balance. In
the past
we have had
comments left on our website that strongly disagree with our opinions
and we relish them. Good stuff all the way around.
But this one
hit me like a punch to the gut. My mother-in-law once told me
I was too thin-skinned and I was beginning to believe it.
My first thought
was, “OMG -- was my message unclear? Did I go overboard with
the snarkyness and cloud the overriding theme?”
I don’t mind criticism (I say with more bravado than I actually
have), but being a bad writer horrifies me. Was my post so bad
that it didn’t even make sense? Should I delete the post
or rewrite it? Tone down the snark?
I fired off
an e-mail to an old school chum who grew up to be a college professor.
"Is my post as bad as I'm convincing myself it is?"
One of those “Tell me like it is -- I can take it” e-mails.
I knew he would do just that, which further panicked me as I hit
the SEND button. I waited -- obsessively reading and rereading
the post and the response -- unable to see either objectively.
Growing
up all we knew about San Francisco was that it was really
cool. Eric Burden sang about it, Otis Redding sat on its dock
of the bay and it required flowers in your hair if you were
going there. Sure Tony Bennett left his heart there but Jimi
Hendrix left his guitar, on fire! Well...
it's true,
it's
true, it really IS cool.
We
rode the subway under the Bay into town (comforting ourselves
with the knowledge that the odds of an earthquake rolling
through while we were underground were minimal) and immediately
encountered some modern day hippy wannabes trying to make
the scene.
Haight – Ashbury may not be filled with real live hippies
these days, it plays on that past as a tourist attraction
rather than a current event, but it's still far out.
The buildings, the views, the park make this district ooze
with reminiscent coolness. The shops with apartments
over
them along Haight. The houses stacked on top of one another
along the sidestreets. The groovy little panhandle connected
to Golden Gate Park. It all adds up to make a very happenin'
...continue
reading > >
The
Old College Pry
