Monday Musing - What does it all mean?

So, you might have heard that my oldest child graduated from college yesterday. (I know, I've been keeping that news quiet, but it just seems to have leaked out.) As you can imagine, the occasion has had me doing a lot of thinking. Thinking about the passage of time goes without saying. After all, I'm his mother...I carried him under my heart, brought him into this world, and did my very best to guard over him as he grew into the young man he is today.

The other thing I've been thinking about? College degrees. Current wisdom holds that a college degree is the be all and end all. The speeches given at the graduation ceremony talked a lot about how these young people are now ready to take their place in the world. And yet... They're not any more ready than they were yesterday. Yes, they have more random facts at their fingertips, but they have very little hands-on knowledge of the world. This generation, more than any generation before them, is prepared only for the "knowledge jobs". Very few of these kids now how to "do" anything. Yard work, automobile repair, cooking, cleaning...things that previous generations took for granted, these kids have no knowledge of. Even Congress acknowledges that they aren't actually prepared to live adult lives. The new healthcare bill included a provision for parents to keep their "kids" on their medical insurance until they are 26 years old. Seriously? 26?! If they're kids at 26, at what age will we consider these kids well-prepared to live their own lives?

Esoteric knowledge is a wonderful thing. I love having weird little factoids at my fingertips. I love knowing things. Knowing things makes me feel smart. Being able to do things, however, makes me feel strong and competent. I think our current method of educating our young is so out of balance, weighed so heavily in favor of knowledge and so dismissive of the contributions our hands and bodies can make to our world. I want to see the return of shop class, sewing class, home ec, wood shop, metal shop, and all those other things I remember kids exploring when I was one of those kids. I took metal shop in junior high (seriously!) and it was so cool. Pounding hot metal into a shape was an amazing experience. It gave me a greater understanding of what was involved in fabrication. I took ceramics and architecture in high school. (I wasn't any good at either one.) I have no desire to be a potter or an architect, but I still remember the feel of the wet clay on the potter's wheel and the joy of getting perfectly uniform letters on my drawings.

I left those experiences behind as I pursued my college degree. It was the go-go 80s. Wall Street and Michael Douglas gave an image to the pursuit of money and we all jumped on the bandwagon. The business department at CSUN was so full of kids following that dream, we couldn't get the classes we needed to graduate. It took me almost six years and the loss of someone significant in my life for me to realize a business degree was NOT something I wanted. I floundered around, trying to find myself. I got married, I had children, and I put pursuit of my degree on a shelf in my mind.

Eventually, I reached an inescapable conclusion:

A college degree is valuable.

I have one (one that took me 23 years from start to finish). Superman has one, too. And now our oldest child has one. But it didn't transform our lives. The piece of paper isn't education or knowledge. The paper isn't money in your hand. It isn't a job or a promise of a job. It is a piece of paper. Ideally, the piece of paper signifies that you've spent a lot of time opening your mind to new ideas. New ways of thinking. New ways of viewing the opportunities that will present themselves. It is what we do with that knowledge, those ideas, that new way of thinking that can make a college degree so valuable.

So, as I sat there watching my boy and his peers graduate from college yesterday, I wondered if they'd been sold a myth. Did they think these degrees conferred upon them will give them "happily ever after"? Did they understand that their learning can't ever stop? That their growth will continue their entire lives? That their degree is really only the beginning? I wonder.

I told my son he should view his college degree as a visa to a foreign country. Like a visa, a college degree won't get him anywhere by itself. All it does is make it possible for him to enter certain lands if he works to get himself to their borders. If he doesn't make the effort to get to those borders, the visa won't do anything for him. It will just be an expensive piece of paper.

What do you think? Why did you get a college degree? Why do you want your kids to get college degrees? Or, conversely, why don't you think it is important to have a college degree in the coming new world order?

My Monday Musings - Time Marches On...

Every moment is a golden one for him who has the vision to recognize it as such.

- Henry Miller

Yesterday, Buttercup advised me that she's not going to be replacing Biscuit when her beloved hamster dies. While this may not seem like a big deal to you, this is monumental in our house. We've had hamsters since Buttercup was in kindergarten. The American Girl dolls were packed away this winter; settling in for the long wait for Buttercup's own children.

The army men and the Lincoln logs didn't get unpacked last summer. No rubber band ammunition came out. Army men and Lincoln logs have been a part of our lives for so long and, yet, their time has come. Even the Legos don't come much these days. (I'm thinking as cat chew toys doesn't count, right?) Valiant, too, is packing up favorites...favorite books, favorite toys...just not favorites for this time in his life.

Charming's beloved whales, novels, and drawings have been packed away for two years now. Even his silly dinosaur bank has been saved for sometime in the future.

I have a box in which I've packed away one of my own baby dresses, one of my brother's baby outfits, and a favorite outfit from each of my children's baby years. A few baby blankets and a beloved mobile round out the baby box and the baby years for two generations are tucked away

And just like that, the baby/little kid years are gone from the Nagle5 household.

As I sat there in the kitchen last night, discussing with Buttercup her decision to let Biscuit be her last hamster, I was struck by how much my children have grown up in these past few years. Oh, I knew they were growing up. After all, I'd had a mini breakdown when I sent Charming off to college that first fall. Even then, the progression was clear: Charming, Valiant, and finally Buttercup would all grow up. And yet... How quickly the time has passed between longing for a moment of quiet and wondering where all the play went. Oh, I know to the mother of younger children quiet is a longed for household attribute (if even for a moment) and I'm not saying I wish for a house full of shrieking children. I'm stopping, pausing if you will, to acknowledge the passage of time, the changing of seasons in my children's lives.

When my boys were little, I would receive negative comments regarding the fact that they are (deliberately) five years apart. "Oh, you're going to be back in diapers again!" "Oh, you're going to be housebound again!" "All that baby stuff." These were often quickly followed up with, "That is why I had my babies close together, so I could just get it all over with." As you can imagine, these same people were stunned, when almost three years later we welcomed Buttercup. Yep, more diapers, more home time, more baby stuff...another baby in the house.

Those days are past and we've entered a new phase in our family. Charming graduates from college in less than two weeks and fast on his heels, Valiant is already talking about driving and girls. The boys in the neighborhood are on the move and not content to hang out in the cul de sac anymore. Bikes are de rigueur Buttercup, too, has let me know she's putting away her "little girl" years. The talk is now about which friends wear make-up, wear bras, and are boy-crazy.

This is such an exciting time for my children, but can it be exciting for me, too? Oh, yes! No, I have no more cuddly babies, but my time spent with my neighbor's adorable baby boy has cemented for me the fact that the season for babies of my own is long gone. I am so glad I spread my children out, enjoying each of them in the various "stages" of babyhood, but I am done. I'm loving the time I do things with my children, not just do things for my children. I celebrate as these amazing "former cuddly babies" of mine reach new milestones of their own. I am excited to see them set bars to reach of their own and surprise themselves with what they can do. I encourage them to look forward with enthusiasm. I've done my job well, despite the ups and the downs, and they're amazing people for whom I'm filled with admiration. I like spending time with my children as individuals, not just my children. How cool is that?

As my last baby showed me last night, time is marching on in the Nagle5 household. I want to be part of the parade, but I'll let them choose our route in this uncharted territory.