Wayward Children

Even as I write this, I can see the humor of my heartbreak; I know that someday I will laugh at the situation. And let me warn you that logic does not work with an angry 19-year-old.
"I don't even believe you're my parents anymore!" my 19-year-old son yelled as he raced down the stairs.
This was the second time he had walked away from the conversation, and the first time he slammed a trash bag against the door frame until it burst.
You might wonder what caused this outburst.
I told him that we wouldn't pay for his apartment while he attended college unless he passed his classes.
I'll just wait a minute while you re-read that last sentence. Let it sink in.
As parents, we were insisting that this boy, who went to college last year with scholarships in hand because of his high test scores, attend class and pass the classes, if he wanted us to pay his rent.
Many teenagers or young adults might be happy if their parents paid for their college. Others might be thrilled if parents paid their rent, but apparently we went too far in agreeing to pay for both if he received good grades.
If you are trying to understand this logically, give up.

Last fall, my youngest son left for a 4-year university. A perfect storm of illness, wisdom teeth infection, a girlfriend at home, and a room full of four guys convinced him that college wasn't for him. He only passed one of four classes he took.
He moved home in January and attended a local community college. Again, only passing one of four classes. In May, before we knew he hadn't passed the classes, we let him move in with a friend. The two of them started a business, which blew up, along with the friendship in July. We never liked the roommate, so were happy to have him move home. He had talked about getting a house with three other guys, one of whom went to high school with him.
This past Saturday, we scheduled my son's classes for the fall. He has decided to take a two-year welding program. That's fine, but we don't really see him sticking with a trade job. He has never been a hands-on kind of guy, the kind who likes to get dirty or even play with Legos.
While scheduling classes, I asked him to pull up his class from this summer, and he hadn't passed it, just by a small amount, but still.
The next day, I asked my son to join me for breakfast. He didn't have time. On Monday, I again suggested we go somewhere to talk. No time.
On Tuesday, I saw him in the kitchen and attempted to bring up a conversation about the possibilities for him this fall. He could return to the 4-year university and live in an apartment with his brother while taking a few classes to explore what he wants to do.
His eyes went blank, as if he'd pulled down shades, like a character from a cartoon.
"Why do you do that?" I asked. "You aren't even listening to anything I say."
"Because you always second guess me," he said.
"When have I done that?" I asked.
"Now," he said.
And that's it. Just this one time that I thought he might not want to be a welder and knowing that he hadn't succeeded in the class he took this summer.
On Thursday, he decided to make peace and let me know that he and his friends had found a 4-bedroom house to rent.
That's when I released the bombshell that we wouldn't pay for an apartment until he passed his classes.
"So I have to live here until December?" he asked.
"Yes," I responded.
He couldn't possibly do that. Living here was impossible! He didn't even want to go to school at all.
The situation didn't improve, and when he stormed out the door to go to work, I was left wondering if he would quit school and simply move out.
It's not what I want. I want to help him succeed at college, and I think I'm doing everything that I can toward that.
He came home last night after I was in bed. No one has talked about what will happen, what his future holds.
Right now, we're all kind of waiting to see what happens.
I'm sure I broke my parents' hearts when I was his age. I was rude and entitled. I traveled to faraway cities to live a couple of times.
To adults, it seems silly that he wouldn't take the offer of college and get a degree to be whatever he wants to be.
Last night, I was talking to a student, probably in his mid 20s, who told me he is having trouble getting to class because he has to take care of his 1-year-old daughter, and the girl's mother wants nothing to do with her. We talked about how difficult it is to go to school while raising a family and working.
He told me his 17-year-old sister thought she didn't want to go to college, and he was trying to convince her to do it now.
"You know," he said, "there's some people who can't learn from watching other people. They have to make those mistakes themselves before they learn."
And that rang true for me.
In the midst of my broken heart, in the midst of standing fast to the rules we've set, in the midst of loving my son in spite of his misguided path as he grows up, I know I have to let him make his own way and hope that I'm around when he's ready to ask for guidance.

Different Paths

All three of my kids are smart. Grace has a terrific memory; she excels at writing, literature and, at one point, understanding DNA. Spencer was always a math hound who loves history. He wipes most people away at chess, as he sees the board and all it's possible moves. He can tell you pretty much every play he ever made in every game in his high school basketball years.
Tucker, my youngest, was the most well-rounded. In addition to an excellent

memory, he had a good balance of reading, writing, and math. He loved history and created fun stories in journalism. He took mostly Advanced Placement classes his last two years of high school. He understood how to succeed in school. He got they system in a way that Grace and Spencer never did after all those years of homeschooling.
Last year, when we went for his annual checkup, the doctor asked what colleges he was thinking about. He told her he'd been accepted at Pitt, University of Missouri and Ohio University. The doctor turned to me and said, "It doesn't matter where he goes; He'll be fine."
And I agreed.
School was pretty easy for him.
Then college happened and things seemed to go downhill quickly.
Circumstances lined up against him. He started having panic attacks in the summer. Then he had his wisdom teeth pulled the week before he left for college. They became infected the first week he was there.
He came home nearly every weekend for doctor or dentist visits.
He also had a steady girlfriend who was still in high school, so he came home regularly to see her.
Living in the dorms did not agree with Tucker.
He had three roommates. One of them was his best friend, Josh. The other two were also friends from home. With four guys in the room, Tucker never had any alone time. As an introvert, he needed alone time to restart his engines.
At my insistence, he took his guitar alone to school. At home, we would frequently hear him playing the guitar in the basement. At school, he took it out to play only once, when another friend begged him to play a song.
All of these circumstances, plus some apathy since he didn't know what he wanted to do, caused him to end up with bad grades in almost all of his classes.
We agreed to let him come home in December and take classes at the local community college.
He signed up for 4 classes, and yesterday I asked him how his grades ended up. He only passed one of those classes.
None of them were too hard for him. He had Calculus in high school and failed an Algebra class in college. History, one of his passions, he failed too. Economics joined the dominoes of failures.
So after a year of college, he has two classes that he passed.
I don't even want to add up the amount of money we paid for those two classes.
This summer, Tucker, 19, is signed up for a welding class.
I don't think he'll like it. He has never been the kind of guy who played with Legos or built things. But we're giving him a chance. He can earn a two-year degree in welding at the community college.
This class is his final opportunity with us footing the bill though. He'll need to do well in this class for us to help pay for the rest of the welding classes.
And if he decides he wants to go back to college in the future, he'll be responsible for the tuition there too.
That's a hard choice, because we've paid for college for Grace and Spencer. They've taken out the government loans available to them and we've paid the rest, taking out some loans ourselves.
But Tucker's choices force us to draw the line.
While he's in school, we're paying his rent, but if he's finished with school then he'll need to pay for his own apartment too. Not to mention his phone. When do we stop paying for his contacts and his monthly medicine too?
I'm not sure, but I know he's going to face the real world much sooner than the other two did.
I'm not counting Tucker out as a failure. He has just chosen a different path.
Tucker and a friend have started a landscaping business. They're working quite a bit and that could turn into a money maker for him. I fully support him in becoming an entrepreneur, and maybe he'll be the most successful of all of our children.
I just never pictured any of our children not going to college, and especially not Tucker.