The Perils of a Boarding School Parent

We just returned from a week’s vacation at the beach. We decided to take this trip when we realized it was August and we hadn’t planned for a vacation and let’s face it, who doesn’t need a vacation these days. I’m still reeling from my failure to use sun block thinking that the rented umbrella would protect me. I refused to conform to basic beach rules and now feel the sun unleashed its vengeance for my defiance. The sting is not so bad once you get used to it, but hey, its proof I had a vacation.  The purpose of the vacation was for the three of us, my wife, my daughter and me to engage in a tranquil week full of nothing to do before sending our only child, our daughter to boarding school. Yes, I said it, boarding school.  Most people cringe at the very thought of having a child live away from home. Boarding Schools in most adults mind is a unpleasant place where bad and unwanted spoiled rich kids go.  Recently, when we were out buying school supplies, a gentleman approached my daughter as she contemplated between a floor lamp and a traditional banker’s lamp,he asked what college she was headed to this fall. She politely smiled and replied that she was going to a boarding school, to which he cynically responded, “What did you do?”  She wasn't discouraged or put off by his statement.  But I wanted her to say that she had worked her ass of studying to achieve good grades. That she worked in the community helping others, that she played sports and freely practiced her faith.  I wanted her to kick him in the shins. 

As parents of boarding students we carry an enormous amount of guilt, and if you’re a Puerto Rican Catholic like I am, well the enormity is even greater. You see, not only do we have to deal with the wrath of Jesus, but we have to contend with the tears of the Blessed Mother.  I think I have made her cry so much she has holes in her eyes.  The last nor’easter was the result of my impending doom for even allowing the venial sin of boarding school to enter into my thoughts, forgive me Father for I have sinned.  I think the only way to be absolved of such a sin is to practice a public mourning much like the Shai’s during Muharram.

Not having your child live with you is difficult no matter what age they leave. But if I am being honest, and I am, fourteen seems awfully young. I’ve had to ask myself some serious and tough questions that challenge my capability as a parent. Did I really prepare her for the world? What lessons have I forgotten to teach her? Is she ready to think on her own? Can she even feed herself? I mean really, how many times have you asked your teenager when was the last time they ate and the response is always a resounding “idunno”. I don’t want her to go. I want her to stay forever at home take care of her every whim, but she’ll just grow up to be an irresponsible adult lacking direction and motivation and end up on MTV with a reality show.

I knew that the day would come when we had to actually drop her off, but that always seemed like something on the “to do list” much like cleaning out the gutters. You know it has to get done and you will eventually do it, but there is still time before the real rainy season begins. Well, the storm has arrived and as I walk past our dining room table with all of her items strewn about, the reality has finally taken its toll on my heart. The dread of not hearing her voice every day torments me, albeit we have cell phone, it’s how her sound resonates against the walls of our home, the vibration of her laughter that slowly and warmly fills me.  Each morning I enter her room and wake her with the same phrase, “Good morning my love, time to get up". Who will repeat those words and watch her as she peeks her head from her comforter pull back her tangled hair and say, good morning daddy? Do they know that she is a vegetarian and ironically Team Jacob?  

We vacillated between our daughter being a boarding student and day student. However, once we considered the rigorous shool demands and calculated the distance and time it would take to get her there and back, boarding became the practical and reasonable option.  So I remain in a constant purgatory thinking for now that I made the right choice. 

I know that going away to school seems extreme to most parents and the side comments and looks my wife and I get are hard to contend with at times. The comments people make are polite false statements in support of our choice when in actuality they really think we’re off our rocker. A friend of mine, whose daughter is off to California and was in my daughters eight grade class, told me that his father-in-law told him that if he did not want to raise his daughter anymore he should just send her to live with him.  Each time I see my friend, his heart is heavy and the pain is an obvious wart neither of us wants to acknowledge. I consider myself lucky; my daughter is only thirty minutes away.  

One parent asked what was I going to do about our daughter’s spirituality now that she was going to a Quaker School. I thought Quakers believed in God too.  Most non-boarding parents tell us that they under no circumstances could ever in a million years send their child, especially at such a young age, to a boarding school. I say to all the naysayers, take yourself out of the equation and for one minute think what my wife and I and most parents of students who board think.  In order to have extraordinary children, you have to present them with extraordinary possibilities. Boarding school isn’t for every child. It takes a special kind of child to meet the challenges and demands of a college preparatory independent school. Our daughter has earned her place and has worked hard to achieve all that she has. We are proud of her and have told her so many times. Our wish has always been to see and meet the woman God has intended her to become.