College and Dorm Thoughts

 I had a revelation when I went to San Marcos to see my daughter in her dorm. It was that dorm life is designed to actually prepare young people to be on their own. That’s the point of it. It serves a purpose. 

When I graduated from high school in 1996, I was not able to go to a university that offered dorm life, because I was a straight C student. At age 43, I was finally diagnosed with ADHD. But if anyone had told me or my parents back then that I had it, that would be extremely controversial. I’ve often shared here that my upbringing felt like an absolute war zone. My parents didn’t have any conflict resolution skills besides yelling and screaming. Periodically throughout my K-12 years, I know my teachers suggested many ways for my parents to help me, but my parents got extremely angry at them and me each time. In first grade, they wanted me to repeat. In fourth grade, my seemingly 100 year old teacher called my parents to suggest some sort of evaluation for learning disabilities, and my dad yelled at her on the phone. I was absolutely mortified. In 7th grade and my senior year of high school, teachers approached my parents about sending me to counseling and it only made things worse for me at home. There were three years that I know of (5th, 7th and 10th grades) that summer school was suggested, and again, it only got me in deep trouble at home with Armageddon yelling and screaming.  

I remember always wanting to learn, always wanting to do better, and always trying as hard as I could. I have several memories of looking ahead to future chapters in my textbooks and thinking that the topics were so interesting and I couldn’t wait to get there. Then we’d get there, and I’d lose train of thought almost immediately. Sometimes I get frustrated, because I find myself thinking, “They should teach this in school!”  Then catch myself and realize that there is a good chance they did, and I was just ADD as hell and missed it. 

So by the time my graduation rolled around in 1996, going to any university where I had a chance at living in a dorm was dead. I was told to enroll at a community college and maybe I could transfer to a university in my third year. I went to the local community college in August of 1996 and took their placement tests. I scored great in reading and writing, but my math and science were at a 7th or 8th grade level. It was as if I had never been to a high school math or science class. I had to take two years of remedial math at the community college. I remember one of them being a night class with 30-40 year old homeless people attending. 

I can sit here and wonder what happened all I want, but chances are what happened was that the schools didn’t want to and probably couldn’t deal with my parents. In the 80’s and 90’s, you were also really only considered a “troubled kid” deserving of intervention if your parents were divorced. If you came from parents who stayed married and were not “poor” then any problems you had were your own fault. I know this because after the counseling attempt when I was 17 and my high school teachers tried to intervene, my mom did pay for me to go to counseling a couple times. This counselor just sat there and told me how good I had it compared to kids in the inner city with one parent, and how I better shape up. (Thanks, I’m cured.) 

Everyone knows that the no child left behind act was passed in 2000, and to this day I’m still not entirely sure what that law did, what it prevented, what the purpose was, and why all the teachers are mad about it. I cannot find any simple explanation, so if anyone has one please lmk in the comments. Sometimes when I try to make sense of what happened to me and what allowed me to fall through the cracks so badly, NCLB lingo gets thrown around- and it didn’t exist when I was in school. 

Thinking back on the last 18 years with my daughter, I know I wasn’t a perfect mom but I did do about a hundred times better than my own parents. I never made fun of my daughter to her face, she never witnessed rage full yelling unless it was coming from her grandparents, if she struggled with anything, I helped, and she was allowed to do things I could have never dreamed of. She was allowed therapy, tutoring once, summer school once, and even got an evaluation that granted her some 504 plan accommodations in her sophomore year. 

Another thing that seemed to happen a lot in 1996 with me was that my parents, aunts and uncles, older cousins etc, would shame me for wanting to be on my own. I was guilted for it like crazy. I was also guilted for wanting to go to college, ironically. They successfully managed to demean me for wanting to go while simultaneously inventing future scenarios in which I would be nobody in life if I didn’t go. If I said anything out loud about someday any prospects of my own apartments or perhaps moving in with roommates, you’d think I was asking them to kill puppies. 

One time, my aunt started getting on my case about wishing I could go to a university and live in a dorm. She said, “What do you think you’re going to do when the dorms close for Christmas and summertime, huh?!?!?”  I quietly assumed that meant I would go back home to my parents. (It did mean that).  But my aunt was so extremely pissed that I just told her I didn’t know what I was goi g to do. “Yeah that’s right!  You don’t know!  You’d have to come back to mom and dad!”  

29 years later now, and I’m like wow. lol, I got yelled at for that. And the truth is yeah, that’s the point. I’m realizing now that dorm life is actually designed to teach young people age 18-20 how to live on their own. Going home for the holidays is a part of that teaching you, because in an ideal world, you still want to come home sometimes for the first couple of years. You actually don’t want to just leave and abandon your parents and never come back again. 

Needless to say, I am so happy for Anna and so proud of her. Despite the handful of setbacks above that I mentioned, she did receive a scholarship based on testing scores, and her father actually put the rest of the money in her account. (She told me he did that for this semester, but the scholarship is applied over 8 semesters).  I am super happy about that too, because some people (not my ex tho!) have actually forced their kids to take out loans.  That’s a discussion for another day. “Things we talk about on Reddit: 18-22 year olds tend to not question their parents when the parents say sign here.” 

This is all why it’s bitter sweet. I’m happy she’s getting the start in life that she deserves. And I’m sad that I didn’t. The good news for me now though, is that I’ve found my way to a wonderful place in life.