My Kid's Not Going to College

     My kid’s not going to college.  That used to be a hard sentence to get out because people looked at me funny.  During my son's high school junior and senior year, friends would talk about where their kids applied to college, who they'd heard from and where they were going, maybe.  And the plans, Oh! The plans. When they asked me I was honest, “My son’s not going to college.”  My son's always had other plans.  The look I got was a cross between pity for me and embarrassment for asking.  

     My son is in a luthier apprenticeship.  Don’t feel bad if you don’t know what that means; spell check doesn’t either.  A luthier is someone who makes or repairs stringed instruments; in my son’s case, guitars.  My son has been all about guitars for probably six years.  I say probably because I’m not sure. I wasn’t paying attention. I was too busy spinning my mommy-wheels and driving us both crazy in a futile attempt to get him to do my version of 'applying himself'.  Pretty much, I was too preoccupied with what I thought to notice he was already applying himself.  I insisted he join a school-sponsored club … Find a sport to participate in – Anything that would look good on a college transcript while he taught himself to play the guitar and happily pursued his dream.  Without me…

    

I hope my son goes on learning, always.  I hope this program renews in him what education is; that it is engaging, interesting and applicable to his life. But the real education here was mine.  What is it we say as parents?  I only want you to be happy.  Whatever makes you happy makes me happy.  I don’t care what you do as long as you’re happy.  There are a million, million versions of that phrase and for how many of them do we add a but and change the whole meaning because we know better?

     I only want you to be happy but a college education is… Fill in the end.  Whatever makes you happy makes me happy but there is no future in… I don’t care what you do as long as you’re happy but that job won’t…

     At some point it’s time to just let those words stand with no buts because they were right without the but.  They were right as they stood.  They were right as we believed they were, once.  When we wanted to be artists and writers and ballerinas... And joyful.  So, whatever makes you happy will make me happy.  Rock on, Baby.  Rock on.

This is an original NJ Moms Blog post. When not learning lessons about life from her kid, Tracy blogs at The Crazy Suburban Mom.