I feel like I won the parenting wars

[Anonymous]

Congrats to your kid on the outcome but why do you sound like you think you get the credit? Your kid did the work. My nephew is an ivy grad and he didn’t have parents who hovered. He was bright and worked hard and followed his genuine interests. Most of those parents you think you outparented were never in a competition with you. And they probably feel as strongly as you that they made the right choices in their parenting approach. My older
kids didn’t attend an Ivy and skipped ED for financial reasons. They are happy, healthy and were able to enjoy HS. They rocked college.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Congrats, OP, for finding your way through the chaos of the high school years. I understood from your post that you were competing not so much against other parents as against the dominant culture for bandwidth. We live in a society that can be inimical to parents, where kids are constantly exposed to messaging that undermines their best efforts. Asserting your own value structure and trying to help your kid along a constructive path can be a lot of work. Appreciate that you were honest about that fact! However, your emphasis on acceptance to a top school as a proxy for a safe and successful future is misplaced. Also, the difficulties you mentioned navigating were not minor speed bumps, but major red flags. The essence of the critical posts is that people are worried.

I have no idea what culture you are talking about it. Can you point out where this exists? In the DMV? Or any other major city/suburb?

[Anonymous]

You're rich with just a single kid and patting yourself on the back about all the support you gave single kid?

ok. clap clap clap.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My DS was accepted ED1 to an elite university. Husband and I have worked for years to help him with grades, encouraging increased in AP classes, motivation, ec's, supporting his varsity sport, helping with the mental toughness training/support required for the sport, requiring DS do volunteer work, etc. throughout high school.

Our parenting style differs from our siblings parenting style - they are more "live and let live." DS has also overcome struggles with anxiety and social issues (stress in his sport and around acclimating to a new HS), even us finding vape carts and getting him a therapist). A visit to the emergency room on prom after too much vodka. So many opportunities to veer too far off track.

I'm just feeling so grateful, his senior year, to be on the other side with him heading to a great school with amazing opportunities. I'm also feeling validated with our parenting style. Most importantly, DS is extremely proud of his accomplishment. He did it! We did it! Feeling proud and emotional about this next phase. Parents need to pat ourselves on the back sometimes🥹

You have not won anything yet. You still have the next four years to continue doing this.

[Anonymous]

Interesting that OP hasn't even mentioned what school. "Elite" can mean different things to different people. OP why don't you share the name of the school?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My DS was accepted ED1 to an elite university. Husband and I have worked for years to help him with grades, encouraging increased in AP classes, motivation, ec's, supporting his varsity sport, helping with the mental toughness training/support required for the sport, requiring DS do volunteer work, etc. throughout high school.

Our parenting style differs from our siblings parenting style - they are more "live and let live." DS has also overcome struggles with anxiety and social issues (stress in his sport and around acclimating to a new HS), even us finding vape carts and getting him a therapist). A visit to the emergency room on prom after too much vodka. So many opportunities to veer too far off track.

I'm just feeling so grateful, his senior year, to be on the other side with him heading to a great school with amazing opportunities. I'm also feeling validated with our parenting style. Most importantly, DS is extremely proud of his accomplishment. He did it! We did it! Feeling proud and emotional about this next phase. Parents need to pat ourselves on the back sometimes🥹

Wow. Just wow.

[Anonymous]

If you are looking for external validation through your kids college admissions to known whether or not you “won” or were successful as a parent, keeping a ledger where a successful admissions wipes out a parenting mistake (like your kids drinking) then you probably have a really harsh inner critic and a fairly anxious lifestyle. When people are saying to you “none of this is normal” or “this doesn’t sound right” this is what they are reacting to. Ideally you would be supportive of yourself and your efforts and you would feel like “I have done my best and also really enjoyed most of being a parent and I wish my child the best as he or she begins this new chapter.” I think it’s the asset/ledger framing that some of us are reacting to and I am saying this as someone who only got significant treatment for my undiagnosed anxiety after my kids were older. I am worried that OP sounds like she judges herself pretty harshly and is unkind to herself. This whole framing is somewhat worrying actually.

[Anonymous]

No one is taking anything away from what OP’s kid has accomplished but it’s the underlying message or subtext that seems to be getting under people’s skin: “I won, my way works, my way is THE way, I’m a better parent because my kid got into an elite college”. That subtext is hurtful, or at the very least, irritating, no matter what the situation is (sports, academics, kids’ marriages, jobs, grandkids). OP comes across as tone deaf or having tunnel vision with regards to the bigger world out there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Interesting that OP hasn't even mentioned what school. "Elite" can mean different things to different people. OP why don't you share the name of the school?

No, the particular school doesn’t matter and if OP named it, the thread would turn into a debate about what is elite, why not an Ivy, not as good as an Ivy so what is there to brag about, but it’s T10, who cares about rankings, etcetcetc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Interesting that OP hasn't even mentioned what school. "Elite" can mean different things to different people. OP why don't you share the name of the school?

No, the particular school doesn’t matter and if OP named it, the thread would turn into a debate about what is elite, why not an Ivy, not as good as an Ivy so what is there to brag about, but it’s T10, who cares about rankings, etcetcetc.

Where does it indicate it is a T10 school? OP said "elite," not T10.

[Anonymous]

In any other forum here the OP would have been exposed in less than 2 pages, but people here are still going strong 11 pages into this experiment.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Interesting that OP hasn't even mentioned what school. "Elite" can mean different things to different people. OP why don't you share the name of the school?

This is proabably UChicago, the only top 10 with EDI (and Ed2).

[Anonymous]

I do try to have compassion not judgement for people like the OP for being so insecure with themselves they live for status and the vicariously with status of their children, but it is challenging.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Interesting that OP hasn't even mentioned what school. "Elite" can mean different things to different people. OP why don't you share the name of the school?

This is proabably UChicago, the only top 10 with EDI (and Ed2).

The only top 10 that is an easy admit ED….in other words, top 10 in name only.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Interesting that OP hasn't even mentioned what school. "Elite" can mean different things to different people. OP why don't you share the name of the school?

No, the particular school doesn’t matter and if OP named it, the thread would turn into a debate about what is elite, why not an Ivy, not as good as an Ivy so what is there to brag about, but it’s T10, who cares about rankings, etcetcetc.

Where does it indicate it is a T10 school? OP said "elite," not T10.

I rest my case.