Dad,
I’m still trying to understand what happened when the time came for me to apply to college. Throughout high school, my class ranking was always in the top five. By my senior year, I was ranked second. My teachers and my guidance counselor assumed I’d go to college. But none of them explained the process of applying to me. They seemed to expect that you and Mom would guide me through it. But we didn’t talk much about college at home. Mom was enthusiastic about me going, but since she didn’t go herself, she couldn’t be very helpful.
Your feelings weren’t clear to me. You did go to college, but I don’t remember you talking to me much about how to figure out what kind of school would be a good fit for me. Maybe you didn’t really know, because there was only one option for you – it had to be a school with a co-op program, so you could alternate taking classes with working, and it had to be a school that allowed students to commute, so you could live at home and not pay for room and board. The only choice was Northeastern.
In the end, I wrote to a number of private schools in the New England area, as well as the University of Massachusetts, for information and applications, and you agreed to take me to visit some of the campuses that were nearby. But all we did was drive through them. We didn’t get out and walk around. We didn’t go into any of the buildings or talk to any of the admissions people. We didn’t take any tours. You had never explained that these were things we could do. I guess I should have figured out for myself how the process worked. But I was relying on you to guide me. Somehow, you just didn’t seem excited about me going to college.
When I looked at the applications for the private schools, I felt completely overwhelmed. I had no idea how to answer any of the essay questions. You didn’t offer to help me, and I admit that I didn’t ask you to. I didn’t want you to know that I felt like I couldn’t write the essays by myself. I didn’t want you to give me one of your lectures about “the little engine that could.”
When I gave you the financial aid forms, you didn’t exactly say that you wouldn’t fill them out, but you did make it clear that you hated having to accept financial aid when you were a college student and didn’t want to ask for help again. You seemed to think that receiving financial aid was shameful. And I suspect you didn’t want me to see the filled out forms because you didn’t want me to know how much money you made or how much debt you had. You were pretty secretive about that sort of thing.
In the end, the only school I applied to was UMass, which had just one easy essay question. You didn’t try to persuade me to do otherwise. I was accepted, and having done well on the CLEP (College Level Examination Program) exams, I was admitted as a sophomore. You were pleased about that – tuition at UMass was very inexpensive and you would only have to pay it for three years, instead of four. My teachers and my guidance counselor all told me they were disappointed that I was going to a state school. “You should have aimed higher,” they said. “You could have done better,” they told me.
I didn’t know how to explain that it seemed like you didn’t want me to aim higher because you didn’t want to pay for a more expensive school. I didn’t know how to explain my fear that you were jealous of me because of my class ranking and didn’t want me to go to a “better” college than you did. And I certainly didn’t know how to explain that you didn’t seem to be proud of me and that I was afraid I knew the reason – you were disappointed because I was ranked second in my class. You expected me to be first.
Decades after I finished college, during one of our letter exchanges, I found the courage to tell you how painful it was for me that you never expressed any pride in me when I was growing up. I expected you to be defensive. Instead, you floored me by writing this:
“I guess I’ve been so proud of you, I’ve driven you harder [than your siblings] over the years and didn’t express how proud I was and how much you pleased me.”
It was certainly good to read these words. But Dad, they came way too late. I had already spent all of my childhood and young adulthood feeling like I could never win your approval, that nothing I did was ever good enough for you. Your competitiveness with me marred my childhood experience of you – your need to be the best, the smartest, the most talented. I wish you had expressed some of your pride to me back when I really needed to hear it.
Did you hold back from telling me you were proud of me because you just assumed I knew? Did you hold back because you were afraid it would go to my head? Did you hold back because you thought it would motivate me to try harder?
How little you understood me.
Karen
So painful to read this. It almost sounds like you became kind of a peer to your Dad, in a way no one else (in the family) was, and he was highly ambivalent about you leaving him behind.
I’ve never thought about it that way, but it makes sense. He clearly wanted me to excel, but then he was not sure he liked the consequences of me doing so.