Yes, Virginia, you CAN pay for college!

There are plenty of people out there who will emphatically tell you it’s impossible for a kid to pay their own way through college these days. I know. That’s what I’ve been told over and over again. Even as my own kids were doing it.

I’m here to tell you that’s balderdash. It is possible for a kid to pay their own way through college today. It’s not easy though. There’s no magic formula or secret scholarship. There is hard work involved. But I believe the sense of accomplishment and the maturity which develops over the course of a student’s undergraduate years will be more satisfying than having mom and dad foot the bill for four or more years only to graduate with a psychology degree and no idea of what to do next.

Some parents feel it is their duty to pay for their kids to go to college. If you have the means and if your kid isn't going to take you for a ride and party for four years, then I say, "Good for you!"

I want to tell all the other parents out there it’s okay to NOT pay for your kid to go to college. You’re NOT a bad parent because you aren’t footing the bill for a $100,000 or more education. You’re NOT being selfish by protecting your own retirement account and credit rating. You’ve probably gotten where you are by your own hard work and it’s time to let Junior grow up and experience some of that American work ethic and pioneer spirit that has made our country strong.

I know many parents who aren’t comfortable with that. They tell me how they graduated with lots of student debt and how hard it was to start a family, buy a house, keep a car running and pay their utility bills. They want more for their kids. They want their kids to have it all right away--without having to sweat or worry over mounting debt.

That’s a noble thing, wanting to take care of your kids. It’s not bad to want to help them avoid debt. But it might be keeping them from growing up.

We live in a technologically advanced world where everything we could possibly want is literally at our fingertips. We have more variety, more choices, more luxury goods than any other civilization at any other time in history. Life is good. Life is easy. Easy credit and the natural human desire to “keep up with the Joneses” have made bankruptcy and losing one’s home all too commonplace.

I propose that your kid will be better prepared in life to avoid financial disaster if he learns how to make it through college on his own (albeit borrowed) dime.

Good ol' natural consequences

There is an adage in parenting philosophies that says natural consequences are the best punishments to apply to children when they break rules. For example, if Sonny doesn’t get his homework done, he doesn’t get to play his computer game. As Sonny matures, these consequences become more severe, because his actions take on greater importance. If Sonny cheats on a chemistry final exam he could fail the course and lose his spot on the football team.

Now, apply this adage to paying for college: If Sonny doesn’t pass his classes, he doesn’t get any credit toward graduation, but he still has to pay for the class. If Sonny doesn’t pay off his student loans his credit rating suffers and he might lose his job. If, however, mom and dad have paid for Sonny’s college education and Sonny has no stake in it, he can continue to fail classes without worry. And if he doesn’t have any student loans to pay back, he can use his paycheck to buy himself more stuff, while mom and dad continue to pay the bills.

Coming soon: Suspended Adolescence--the Twixters

Detachment Parenting: from birth to college

When I was pregnant with my first child, I was a naval officer in Naples, Italy. I was working at a communications station and mostly sat behind a desk. I was thrilled to be pregnant and I would sometimes think how wonderful it was that I could bring my unborn child with me where ever I went! I could feel her kicking me when I was writing reports or making official-sounding phone calls. She was safe and always close to me, under my heart.

I was terrified of the day when I would have to leave her in day care to return to work after her birth. How I wished I could keep her snug and close to me always.

By the time I was pregnant with our third child, I was near the end of my obligated service to the Navy, so I was looking forward to being able to stay at home with my three small children. I had not yet heard about the idea of attachment parenting, but once I became a stay-at-home mom, I had more time to read up on mothering topics and I gobbled up all I could on attachment parenting, co-sleeping and on-demand nursing. I had breast-fed all my babies, but early return to a demanding military job meant I couldn't nurse them as often as I would have liked and, as a result, it also meant an early return to fertility for me!

As I grew into my role as a mother of many, I became very comfortable with a more natural type of parenting, which included home births and only breast milk for the entire first year of life (and NO pacifiers). This meant I was always very close to my young children and never left them with a sitter for more than a few hours at a time. This also meant we slept with our new babies for about the first six to nine months until they began to sleep through the night. Breast milk is digested much more easily than formula, so breast-fed babies eat more frequently than formula-fed babies, meaning they don't often sleep through the night until they are several months old.

I didn't mind sleeping with my baby because it meant more rest for me! No more getting up in the middle of the night to stumble around in the darkness and find a crying baby in his crib. In fact, co-sleeping babies don't even need to cry. Mom and baby are so attuned to one another that I'd know when my baby woke and needed to nurse. I'd roll over and nurse and we'd both soon fall asleep.

Homeschooling was a natural continuation of attachment parenting. We were bonded to our children; we loved being around them and we felt it would be better for all involved if we continued that close relationship through homeschooling our kids.

Now we come to the other end of the parental spectrum as we are beginning to see our children grow up and move away. Sometimes I feel like the mother bird who has to give her fledglings a little nudge to get them to try out their new wings. Sometimes I feel like I barely turned around and they've flown away. Now is the time to learn detachment parenting.

We decided when our children were small that they'd have to pay their own way to college. That was a flippant response to nosey folks who demanded to know, "How are you going to PAY for all those kids to go to college?"

Yet so far it seems to be working. We had some rough spots we had to work out in the beginning, but I'm so glad we did. We're so proud of our college kids because they've all worked very hard to earn money and scholarships and have had to take out student loans to pay for their education. As a result, I think they appreciate the value of their education and understand how important it is to pay back the money they've borrowed to finance their education.

Three of the four kids currently in college don't drive. They don't drive because they don't want to pay the insurance and upkeep on a car because they are paying for their education. The one who does drive no longer has a car because it died and she can't afford a new one right now.

I was in the grocery store recently and one of the baggers was telling the checker why she wasn't going to college: she had to make her new car payments and she couldn't afford to both pay for her new car and pay for college. Unfortunately, no one told that young lady that a car will depreciate in value, whereas a college education appreciates in value over time.

I've been thinking a lot about the virtue of detachment. It is a most difficult virtue to practice. Oh, I can tell you how my neighbors could develop that virtue in their own lives, but it's not so easy for me to see how I need to improve. I can point to the numerous "McMansions" in the subdivisions near my house and make snide comments about how they "must have a dozen children with a house that large," but fail to see the McMansion in my own eye.

Having fledglings leave the nest and me having to sort through (and store) what they've left behind has got me to thinking about how much stuff do we really need? (The answer: not much).

Perhaps we don't need most of this stuff we have: a lifetime's supply of wonderful homeschooling books, enough clothes so we don't have to do laundry for weeks, enough toys so that we forget what we have and have no place to put the rest!

Over the next six months I'm going to declutter my house. Yes, that is my noble goal. The kids have been notified. We're going to reduce, reuse and recycle...because it's good for our souls. We're going to get better at this thing called detachment. We're going to learn to love people and use things. And not the other way around. It's more than cleaning up messes. It's a change of heart.