What do you want me to say when you ask where my kid is applying to college? When you tell me which applications your child is filling out what are you looking for in my response?
“One of the saddest consequences of social comparison is how bad we distance ourselves from people whose success makes us feel bad about ourselves” suggests Dr. Kristin Neff in her exquisite Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself.
So if my high functioning autistic child is enrolling at North Cornstalk State and your valedictorian, poly-math, lacrosse-team-captain, class president kid is matriculating at Duke/Stanford/Princeton, I’m supposed to feel good about the conversation? And conversely if my daughter is headed to Brown/Rice/Yale and your kid is off to Drooling Mucous University why would I rub your nose in my good fortune unless I’m the kind of person who intones, apropos of nothing, yes, my house is worth a hundred million dollars in which case Dante didn’t anticipate the proper circle in which I should reside and no, nobody asked, home values being like digestive systems in that everyone has one but no one wants to hear about yours.
I hope you would have the social sense not to tell me how much you paid for your 10,000 square-foot home or how many people you dated in college. If I wanted any of this information, I suppose I could ask. In the sense that if I wanted to know what it feels like to put a fork in my eye, I am aware of where the silverware is kept. So if you wouldn’t brag about how far you can hit a golf ball–so bush league–why would you pontificate about where your kid goes to college. Yuk.
The answer to how to get off this unfortunate express train hurtling toward nowhere is so blindingly simple: keep your emotional clothes on. You wouldn’t show up in the parking lot to pick up your kid from high school naked. When a boor asks where your Susie is applying, look them in the eye and inquiry innocently, why is that important to you?
Social media is said to blur boundaries, to make it easy for people to make comments unseen and unseemly. But just as you can’t fool a man who’s not paying attention, no one can remark on your child’s Facebook, Diaspora, X, Reddit or Nextdoor post if your child hasn’t posted. If you’ll forgive an unfortunate analogy, there’s a reason the sewer lines run from my house rather than the reverse direction.
Which brings me to some directed advice about the perennial question, should I have access to my adolescent child’s social media platforms. Hmm. Do you know where your adolescent child goes to school? Do you know how old your adolescent child is? Do you know your adolescent child’s name?
If you answered yes to two or more of the questions in the above paragraph–to be fair, all those birthdays are tough to keep track of–then yes, you should know what your adolescent child is digesting online.
In summary, the rubber necker who wants to clobber himself if your child is applying to more highly rejective colleges than their kid is (or punch you in the emotional nose if their child has two more questions answered correctly on the calculus test or the SAT) deserves no information. Your beloved child’s private information is a sacred trust. Don’t tell nobody nuthin’. Your house has doors for a reason. Why would you allow this thudpucker to make you feel bad about yourself and your parenting.
Whereas your child should have no expectation of privacy online. Your adolescent child’s diary is inviolate. You shouldn’t read it; neither should anyone else. But what everyone else–mean girls, creeps–has access to online should be available to you as well.
I think our duty to our beloved children is clear. Don’t talk about where they are applying to college with anyone. Our kids are not show dogs. And keep a close eye on what information they may be disclosing about themselves on-line–where all kinds of bad folks could treat them like animals.
