Is there an imaginary cut-off period when
Offspring become accountable
For their own actions?
Is there some wonderful moment when
Parents can become detached spectators in
The lives of their children and shrug,
‘It’s Their life,’ and feel nothing?

When I was in my *twenties*,
I stood in a hospital corridor
Waiting for doctors to put a few stitches
In my son’s head and I asked,
‘When do you stop worrying?’
The nurse said,
‘When they get out of the accident stage..’
My Parents just smiled faintly
And said nothing.

When I was in my *thirties*,
I sat on a little chair in a classroom
And heard how one of my children
Talked incessantly, disrupted the class,
And was headed for a career
Making license plates.
As if to read my mind, a teacher said,
‘Don’t worry, they all go through this stage
And then you can sit back,
Relax and enjoy them.’
My Parents just smiled faintly
And said nothing.

When I was in my *forties*,
I spent a lifetime waiting
For the phone to ring,
The cars to come home,
The front door to open.
A friend said,
‘They’re trying to find themselves.
‘Don’t worry!
In a few years, they’ll be adults.
‘They’ll be off on their own
They’ll be out of your hair’
My Parents just smiled faintly
And said nothing.

By the time I was *50*,
I was sick & tired of being vulnerable.
I was still worrying over my children,
But there was a new wrinkle..
Even though they were on their own
I continued to anguish over their failures,
Be tormented by their frustrations and
Absorbed in their disappointments..
And there was nothing I could do about it.
My Parents just smiled faintly
And said nothing.

My friends said that
When my kids got married
I could stop worrying
And lead my own life.
I wanted to believe that,
But I was haunted by my parent’s warm smiles
And their occasional,
‘You look pale. Are you all right’ ?
‘Call me the minute you get home’.
Are you depressed about something?’

My friends said that
When I became a grandparent
That I would get to enjoy
The happy little voices yelling
Grandma! Papa!
But now I find that I worry
Just as much about the little kids
As the big ones.
How can anyone cope
With all this Worry?

Can it be that parents are sentenced
To a lifetime of worry?
Is concern for one another
Handed down like a torch
To blaze the trail of human frailties
And the fears of the unknown?
Is concern a curse or is it
A virtue that elevates us
To the highest form of earthly creation?

Recently, one of my own children
Became quite irritable, saying to me,
‘Where were you?
I’ve been calling for 3 days,
And no one answered
I was worried.’
I smiled a warm smile.
The torch has been passed.

Is the American Dream of affordable education becoming out of reach for most families? Case in point:

Three years after Angie Rider earned undergraduate and graduate degrees at Michigan State University, she has a teaching job that she loves — but also a student loan debt of $100,000. Rider, 27, a fourth-grade Detroit Public Schools teacher, pays $1,000 a month on her debt, and sees no end in sight. That’s why she has delayed buying a home, getting married and starting a family.

“I did the math and it’s going to take (decades) to pay it off,” said Rider. “It’s just crazy. I just feel like it’s never going to go away. I get so hopeless.”

As spring commencement season begins later this month, more students are graduating with a debt load that’s doubled in comparison to a decade ago, as unemployment remains high. The growing student loan debt has led to concerns that it could harm the economy, especially since federally backed student loans can’t be discharged through bankruptcy. Recent reports show that student loans are on track this year to exceed $1 trillion — more than credit and auto loans. Meanwhile, default rates have climbed.

“Student debt has (been) growing for some time,” said Lauren Asher, president of the Institute for College Access & Success, an Oakland, Calif., policy organization that runs the Project on Student Debt. “College costs have continued to outpace both family incomes and available grant aid so students and families are increasingly turning to loans to fill that gap.”

http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20120417/SCHOOLS/204170370#ixzz1sJD36Eaf

I have a son who is a Junior in college and one who will start in a couple of years. We used to joke that we had them four years apart so we wouldn’t have two in college at the same time. Now it is no joke…just a painful reality. Funny how colleges can continue to raise tuition and costs 6-10% a year and say it’s a “good value”. There is nothing “good” about putting our young people in financial ruin before they even graduate and the “value” is subject to marketability. Yet we have all been drinking the Kool aid in the supposition that a kid can’t “make the BIG BUCKS” without a degree. Not to mention, manufacturing jobs or any job beyond minimum wage is not to be had anymore right out of High School. Careers with any hope of entry level and advancement require an advanced degree. SO, unless you have an industrious 18 year old who has a dream and plan that’s clearly defined and who is mature enough to work hard and face sacrifice and disappointment at that tender age with the distant hope of success years down the road, colleges have us all by the mortarboards, I guess.

So important to our communities and most of us really do get it. Curb appeal reels people in and excellent maintenance keeps people happy. Check out this simple, yet timely article.

http://www.comportone.com/cpo/landlord/articles/rellis/cappeal.htm