Let ‘Em Dream
Sorry for being a bit late with this post, but my daughter and I have been on her first college scouting trip. Yes, it’s already time for that, and even though it seems that my Instagram feed is flooded with seniors doing this exact same activity, maybe it’s more of a media marketing tool than an actual reality for many. Most kids wait until their actual senior year to tour college campuses, but that’s a little tricky when you live in the the farthest northwest corner of Montana and your daughter wants to learn among the palm trees of the South. We had to start early, and being the overly prepared OCD mom that I am, we made a long weekend of it, going to a place we had never been before but was located in our beloved South.
We didn’t venture down to Florida though. Instead, my daughter did the sensible thing and chose a work study college that offered her program of choice that was located in a southern state. It was affordable, had a great program, and even offered funds for her to pursue her master’s degree. Win-win, right? I thought so until we stepped onto campus. I’m a huge believer in listening to your intuition, your gut that has no reason to lie to you, which your brain and heart do alarming rates without any remorse. But this was different. On paper, this college was perfect, except that it wasn’t located on the beach but was a day’s drive was the ocean so maybe that would work. Except it didn’t work. Nothing felt right. Despite staying two days on campus, the energy never changed…for either of us. I tried to stay optimistic and not allow my opinions to sway my daughter, but it was obvious by the time the official tour was over, so were we.
What happens next? What did I learn? My daughter is a smart, capable young adult but is still a young adult with more idyllic notions sometimes rather than seeing the reality of a situation. Maybe that’s necessary in order for her to leave the nest willingly without hating us. She realized there were certain characteristics of college life that she really wasn’t able to compromise on and me being her mother, had to allow her to make that choice. Yes, I would love for her to choose a college in an area where I see myself living to or at least being located close enough to that it’s an easy drive to visit. However, I don’t think that is what is going to happen, and I have to be willing to accept this. My daughter has big dreams and it’s due to those big dreams that she has gotten this far, so maybe it’s time that I let her flee the nest without my parental expectations. It’s her life and she is the one who gets to live it. It should be in an area where she feels happy, not one that’s just good on paper. So if your teen has crazy ideas, let them have them. It’s their life and the bigger and fuller that life is the better. So let ‘em dream.
