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[quote=Anonymous][quote]DH and I are both Ivy grads, and this is also generally our large circle of friends in real life and from Facebook, etc.

A good portion of our friends have been posting the early acceptances for their kids to similar top 20 schools.

Our son is a good student but probably only in the top 30% of his class. A B+ student in Regular classes, low 600s SATs. He has always loved the water and really loved some cruises we have gone on, where as a kid he met the captains, etc. He wants to go into shipping operations and attend a Maritime Academy.

He has been accepted into Maine and Massachusetts Maritime Academies and will be deciding between them.

My parents and in-laws are not happy about this, they keep heaving heavy sighs like for all their hard work their grandson is not going to be a King on Wall Street and is going to be killed by pirates. I have also been fastidiously avoiding FB and friends with the news because I just feel like all our friends are going to look at each other knowingly and be like "well I guess we know how their kid turned out."

Please kick my ass. I sorely need an ass-kicking to snap myself out of this feeling like our kid made a left turn into nowhere.[/quote]

[quote]question - are your parents and dh's parents ivy grads/top 20 school grads as well? If not, they have no room to talk. If they are, then I am curious if there is something different you did with your son in terms of raising him than your parents and your inlaws did for you and dh.[/quote]

First, thank you everyone for your really cool answers. I was so ashamed of admitting I'm sort of envious of my friends with kids who are going to Duke, Georgetown etc. and while I would NEVER EVER let my son know I have these thoughts, I do have them and it's an adjustment I'm going to have to make.

Yes, part of the problem is that both sets of grandparents were top school people. I don't even know why my parents seem so put off, because I have a brother who went to a big state school and he's doing quite fine in life. Maybe it's that they want the grandparent brag more than I thought. Could be.

I know it's also that they're unfamiliar with this choice, it makes no sense to them. I remember when I was a kid my mom said I could be anything I wanted to be - did I want to be a doctor or a lawyer? I'm only partially joking here.

As for raising him, he's just always been a kid who is very good, no trouble at all, has lots of friends who are also good kids, but he's never been one we could push into anything. He was either into it or not, and that was the end of the story. So as long as he was aware that better grades and scores give you more choices, I never pushed him further. Basically I counted my blessings that he was doing well enough, we all got along through the teen years, and like everyone he was going to figure it out.

BTW we do have one older who is at a top college via sports recruiting, he was "smarter" and had more academic energy, but boy was he a hard one to raise. I was proud when he got into his college but it was a relief to let college have him! He made us crazy with his antics.

I felt like I hit the jackpot with my one who wants to go into shipping just because he slept through the night and was such an easy kid.

Anyway thank you all so much for the input, it helped a lot and I will get to working on forgetting about what other people think.  :D [/quote]

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