“Parents, back off!” A murmur went through the school auditorium, where hundreds of mothers and fathers were arrayed for a night of information about college applications.
“No, really,” said the cheerful counselor at the podium. “It’s the best advice we can give you, after years of helping young people through this process.”
A few mothers smiled. Most of the fathers stayed stony-faced. You could almost see the thought bubbles rising over the heads of the audience: “Not a chance, lady,” and “I’ll back off if every other parent backs off,” and the occasional sheepish, “I’m trying, I’m trying!”
It wasn’t the first time the audience had heard this message. Several times over the previous months, many of the same people had sat in the same room listening to groups of college and university admissions directors condescend to them.
“Hel-lo everyone!” the woman from the small New England liberal arts college had sung out, on one such evening.
A few parents had nodded back in greeting. It was not sufficient. The woman made an ostentatious face of disappointment.
“Aw, come on! That sounds like how you’d greet your first period teacher! Let’s try again: Hel-lo-ooo!”
“Hello,” replied the audience of architects, doctors, business executives, writers, lobbyists, bankers, teachers and lawyers. A man sitting on the aisle groaned and slid down in his seat; must adults be spoken to thusly?
Apparently so, for, as this crowd was learning, in the college-applications racket parents can be jollied along because they do not count for much.
To the degree that parents count at all, it’s that they’re a nuisance. They are opinionated and pushy and have outdated ideas. They are unduly attached to the pernicious rankings of U.S. News & World Report, a publication that seems to exist solely to ratchet up everyone’s anxiety. Parents are irritants in the otherwise smooth-running machinery that turns high school students into college students.
“You can and should provide support and encouragement. You can celebrate each step along the way,” the Massachusetts Institute of Technology website patronizingly informs mothers and fathers. “But the process must belong to your child.”
Must? Really?
That parents generally provide the funds to pay for college applications — along with SAT testing (and the ubiquitous SAT prep courses) and usually for tuition and room and board — buys them little respect. That parents might know and love their children better than anyone else, and have their children’s best interests at heart more intensely than anyone else, is not to be conceived.
“Where your child goes to school is his or her decision,” a fellow from a prestigious urban university informed the assembly one evening.
“Now, we’re happy to talk to parents,” the man went on, “and we’re happy to –” He paused, and let slip a gleam of the cold truth, “– to take your tuition checks. But otherwise, parents, you need to step back.”
As the parents filed out dolefully afterward, one woman scoffed: “They don’t need to tell me my job. My job is to raise my child as I see fit. Their job is to decide if they want my micromanaged but highly accomplished young man!”
She laughed, but it had a hollow sound.
Meghan Cox Gurdon’s column appears on Sunday and Thursday. She can be contacted at [email protected].
