Raise Good Humans
What I learned when my kids said college wasn’t for them
The other day, I saw this bumper sticker. Raise Good Humans. Crisp white font on a plain black background. Its simplicity stunned me, shuttled me back in time.
When she called in tears that autumn day in 2017, my daughter 3,000 miles away, a freshman at a small liberal arts college in upstate New York, I was concerned, of course, but also confused. What did she mean she was falling apart, needed to come home for the weekend?
My husband and I had been there three weeks earlier for parents’ weekend and her glow! her joy! She had friends and fun, intellectual stimulation and academic challenge. Her second week there, her advisor selected her to be one of five students having dinner at the college president’s house. Five freshmen, the president, and his wife. After dinner, when the wife asked the students if they had any criticisms of the school, my daughter was the only one to respond. “Not a single bathroom on campus has tampons or pads. They should be free and accessible.”
I mean. Badass. Thriving. Promising. So what had changed?
Depression and anxiety have a funny way of working, an insidious way of doing business, of derailing plans, deflecting dreams, dismantling hope. And even when you think you have conquered…
