Mommy Dearest

I work with first generation college students, meaning that most of their parents have never attended college, or maybe went for a semester or so but dropped out. Every emotion attendant on coming to college is really heightened with 1st gens. If you fail out, the fall out is more severe, because you have less of a base to go back to. Sometimes even when you're successful you still feel a rupture at home, because now it's a bit more difficult for your family to relate to you. Or they guilt trip you about how you'll never come home again once you're done, you'll move off somewhere else with your big high-falutin' college job. And that usually turns out to be true. I did. The social worker side of me kicks in pretty hard with this crew. They're really well bonded with me by this point, and they plop down in my office basically to tell me the stories of their lives (which are fascinating), which usually keeps me from the gazillion other things I have to do.

This week I've been meeting with students who are failing two or more classes in school. It's required that they meet with me. Out of the little over sixty students I am personally responsible for, 22 of them are failing. Basically one whole class. That's still less than the average number of 1st gen students who tend to fail their first semester with no program intervention of any kind. So, statistically I'm doing OK. Only about nine of the 22 have bothered to make appointments with me, though, which says a lot. Most of them are falling into two categories--students on the way up and students on the way down. Some of them had shitty midterm grades because of the overwhelming first semester experience, such as being away from home for the first time, doing laundry, just trying to wake up on your own without someone prompting you, figuring out how to test and take notes, because it is *very* different from high school, etc. So they had a first bad test or two, which reflects on their midterm grades. But they're doing better now and will probably pull B's and C's at the end. The other group started out doing OK, and then discovered this university's favorite pastime--partying and drinking yourself stupid. Those students are on the way down, and it's hard to get them to pull their heads out of the hedonistic stupor they've created for themselves and quit screwing themselves academically.

But then there is this third category. And that's students who have a really shitty home life or other circumstances that are really getting in between them and success. And it's just not fair. My Rock Star student (no, really) lost his brother and his best friend in Iraq. Then he fell out of a second story balcony and cracked his back. He doesn't miss a class unless he has to go back to the hospital or to his home town to clean out his brother's stuff. It's usually things that are completely beyond their control that throw up the major blocks in the road. But when it's the parent who is at fault, I just want to make a road trip to New Jersey and bitch slap the lot of them.

Dear Mom of B: I know you thought that waiting until your daughter was "away at college" to file for divorce was probably preferable to putting her through it when she was eight years old. But thanks a fucking lot. Now B feels like her whole relationship to you both was a big, fat lie, and her grades have started to tank. She doesn't know what's going to happen at Thanksgiving, and she's dreading it. She feels like you blew up the place she had to return to and now she feels like she has no home. Good job.

Dear Mom of G: You're the one I'm probably going to drive seven hours one way to smack. I'm sorry your real estate job is on the ropes now, really. But to continue to take the entire paycheck your daughter hitches rides on the weekend to work for is unconscionable. Go out and work at fucking Subway. Here's a thought--do the cashier's job your daughter is doing yourself. G is failing every class she is taking because she is too tired and worried about you moping around your house to get up and take care of her own business. What's worse is that she thinks it's simply because she's not working "hard enough," and that if she just gives 150% instead of the 140% she's pulling now, things will get better. What's worst of all is that you told her on her last trip back you'd be "really disappointed" if she did poorly in school. Quit taking her checks and get off your ass. She's only a couple of months past 18 years old.

Dear Mom of K: Get off your son's ass about talking to girls. It wasn't enough that he left the inner city where he passed drug dealers every day who hooked some of his friends into slinging dope. It isn't enough that he's lived on his own throughout high school and managed to get into college on his own, with no help with his homework from you. It wasn't enough for him to get past being hit and yelled at by a drug addicted dad. The kid doesn't touch booze because he's smart enough to point out that addiction runs on both your side and his pop's side of the family--and this at a school where it's practically offered in the cafeteria. He's making A's and B's. Get off his ass about dating. Tell him how proud you are of him for once. Tell him how happy you are that he's not turning out to be just like you, dad, and everyone else back home.

Dear Mom of A: Your daughter is ashamed to talk about where she comes from because you're on welfare. Which in and of itself isn't a bad thing, but for fuck's sake, don't make her feel guilty over the way she chooses to spend her own money. They're her loans, so if she wants a bigger meal plan, I say tuck in, honey, and enjoy it. She is responsible, and she's making A's and B's right now. She saves her money for laundry detergent while her spoiled little floormates are running out to the clubs to booze it up every night. She works summers to save up money to live on during college. So don't make her feel guilty for not finding a way home to visit you every chance she gets. Don't lecture her about using condoms when you just had another baby and are still on welfare--believe me, she already learned about that life from living it with you. Don't try to control her major or her choice of career. What's worse, when you had to either go to work or to school because of welfare term limits, and you chose school, don't bitch to her about how you can't help her because now you have your own schooling to take care of, and if she can't get anymore loans, tough, because you won't sign for them. You're busy signing off on your own. She has a real shot at doing well here. Get off your ass and get a job and cosign her damned loan. She's already been more responsible than you were at her age.

Gah.

Of course, this will soon be followed up by some smackdown of students who don't have such excuses.

-- DV