Kids, College, and Loans

Let's get real. Going to college on scholarship doesn't work for most kids. While costs for higher education continue to rise and many colleges offer their students some kind of financial aid, that aid usually takes the form of loans. The scholarships that are offered do not generally cover full or even half tuition.

While graduating high school with a parent-fed college fund is a great blessing, parents today often find themselves falling short of being able to even partially fund their kids educational ventures. The fat college fund is a rarity. This is an Xbox-Wii generation. Kids are accustomed to their parents providing Razor phones and video Ipods, but this lifestyle costs a heck of a lot. We aren't very good at delayed gratification and that's what saving money is all about. In the face of the shortfall, students--who aren't really great at looking to the future anyway--blithely assume they'll get full or significant scholarships to the big name colleges to which they aspire.

This is so not reality.

Even at most state schools there is a fierce competition for scholarship money. Kids who have a "B" average might as well forget about it unless they have a significant non-academic skill. Even those who've taken Advance Placement classes and aced them, can't necessarily expect colleges to hand them a free ride. So, generally, it's all about loans.

Getting a college education is vital for most jobs, but how to handle the cost? There are private and public universities and some are "sexier" than others, although this may have little to do with the quality of the educational outcome. A recent study of students who were accepted by Harvard and decided to go elsewhere were equal to Harvard grads in job success. This study indicates that it is students themselves who determine eventual success, not a degree from a "name" school.

Getting massive school loans to go the more prestigious universities is probably not the best idea. The affordability factor makes state schools much more attractive and, for most, more than adequate. Many people believe that graduating from a big name school leads to prestige and "contacts" in the job market. Many elite universities count on this name-brand snobbery. Truthfully, a degree is a degree is a degree. For most careers, the degree gets you the job, not the university it comes from. Once the degree is framed and on the wall, no one really cares.

The exception for this might be those fantasy diplomas from on-line "universities." While more and more brick-and-mortar schools are offering distance-learning, students who graduate from purely on-line schools may still face disparity in the job market.

If you're heading to college or you've got a kid who's graduating high school soon, think hard about the growing college loan load. Particularly if students don't know what career they want, piling up college debt can be a really bad idea. For some high-earning jobs, school loans make sense. Physicians and lawyers have big earning potential. Getting school loans for these graduate degrees makes sense. There are, however, many meaningful, fulfilling careers that don't offer salaries to easily pay off student debt while still being able to live. Attending a big name school on loans to get a graduate degree in social work doesn't make a lot of sense for most students.

Think about the loan-to-salary ratio. When you finish school, throw your mortar board in the air and head off for job interviews, you need to be able to support yourself while you pay off any loans you've accrued. This is just reality and sometimes it sucks.

By all means, get a college degree. Heck, get two! Higher education can be the path to a fulfilling life, but be smart about it. After all, it is the rest of your life and spending twenty years paying off unnecessary student loans is a waste.

The Pre-Cheating Relationship Phase

As bad as things sometimes are, you're not ready to break-up. Your partner has really made you mad, doesn't listen to you sometimes and doesn't seem interested in what concerns you. You aren't ready to call the moving company, but you probably bitch to your friends. Maybe a lot. You may feel hurt and end up doing things you know will annoy him, like going out more with your girlfriends or buying really expensive shoes. Its not that you don't love him, you're just…angry.

You'll both get over it. Everyone fights now and then, right? It doesn't mean you don't love each other. But the fights are getting uglier…and you're fighting about the same things without really making any progress.

This is what the pre-cheating phase of relationships look like.

No one engages in cheating behavior because he or she doesn’t care. While there may be the occasional relationship-impaired individual who doesn't even consider fidelity, most people expect to be faithful to their partners. When you first get together, you love one another. He makes you laugh, makes you feel better during your hormonal days and is generally the one you want to talk to when life's a bitch. It doesn't, however, stay this way.

Just in the nature of human interaction, every relationship involves conflict. Moments when you could scream. Really annoying habits, like her always leaving two or three bras hanging on the bedroom door knob. Or him leaving the toilet seat up. If you've got a relationship, you've got conflict.

The pre-cheating phase is one in which conflicts have arisen and not been adequately resolved. Over time, you can start to feel like your partner doesn't really care if you feel okay about the situation you're fighting over. And if you're feelings don't matter, the bedrock of your love starts to crumble a little.

The other woman laughs at your jokes, finds you really sexy and doesn't bitch about the same old things. She likes you. She wants your body. Little by little, you find yourself feeling closer to her than to the woman you're going home to.

Maybe you start exchanging racy emails with the other guy. There might be phone calls that start out with you trying to get "a guy's point of view." It doesn't feel like cheating because you're talking about your mate. You're trying to understand him. And yet, you find yourself talking to your guy friend four and five times a day. He understands you. You may answer your phone with a lilt in your voice when he calls while there may be a sense of heaviness when your mate phones. Will there be another fight? Is he mad because you didn't pay a bill? Or talk to the kid's teacher at school, as he requested?

You're not thinking of cheating because you still love your spouse, but cheating isn't something that happens suddenly. First, estrangement grows in relationships. You begin having more and more times when you don't feel close to your mate. Times when you aren't sure that you matter that much to her.

Cheating on your mate may not have even occurred to you, but problems in relationship--when left unattended--poison love. And when love is lying gasping on the floor, cheating doesn't seem like cheating. Its like turning away from darkness to what seems like light.

Relationships cycle, if you're not paying attention. They bloom, then regular life happens, then the relationship can start to corrode if you don't deal with the issues. On the downward swing, you may find yourself falling out of love with your mate and into attraction with someone else.

More and more couples are identifying 'emotional cheating'. This is generally a sign of things going bad. Pay attention to how you feel in relationships. Listen to how your mate feels. Deal with the issues or they'll end up killing the love. Don't let yourself slip into the Pre-Cheating Phase. Its the beginning of the end.

"A Lover I Can Trust!"

Singles often claim to be searching for a mate they can trust. Someone who won't disappoint them or let them down. This usually comes after being lied to and cheated on. Rather than trying to find a trustworthy lover, you might try putting some trust in yourself.

Bad, disappointing, frustrating relationships usually have warning signs at the very beginning and you just didn't see them or didn't want to see them. While no individual is perfect, the issues we face in relationship can usually be seen fairly quickly. Over and over, individuals on the brink of break-up or divorce admit that the problems were there from the start and they just didn't want to see them.

In the beginning of relationships, individuals often have giddy lists of their lovers' good qualities. As relationships progress, however, we often struggle with the nuts and bolts of long term love. Over time, the very qualities that enchanted you can become really annoying, even forming the foundation for betrayal and relationship disruption.

So how do you find the "good" man or woman? A mate who'll always be faithful and loyal? Maybe the answer lies in yourself.

Some people claim they only attract the losers, the dates who steal from them or treat them badly. Time after time, they're screwed over. There are, admittedly, some people in the world who've never liked to play by the rules. Sometimes, too, you might not be very clear in the rules of relationship that you consider important.

It's not always easy to see it, but the truth is that you're contributing to every bad relationship you have. You get to--have to--put at least fifty percent into every situation. This may not seem true in your case, but it is a reality. Because you always have the option to walk away--even really tough situations once had a moment when you could have walked away--you always have power in a relationship. You get to acquiese or refuse to be involved.

You may not always have the power to make it what you want it to be, but you have the power to change your experience. The most challenging aspect of relationships lies in our own struggle to see what we contribute and to get out when the situation calls for it. We tend to see what we want to see in relationships. The heart has very poor vision.

If you stumbled into a relationship while you were committed elsewhere--perhaps your lover was also married--you're engaging in tremendous optimism to believe that the two of you won't start looking around when there's trouble in your own marriage.

Don't expect loyalty from a guy who doesn't pay his child support or who steals from his boss. No matter what the emotional situation, some commitments are unquestionable. If you think your lover will be different with you than with her last husband, you're indulging in a sad optimism.

Don't just search for someone you can trust. Learn to trust your own instincts and your own assessment…even of the people you like.

Psychology of the Bridesmaid Dress

Brides keep asking a slew of their friends to be bridesmaids, when planning The Big Day, and bridesmaids keep dreading the bridesmaid dress. What is this all about? Being asked to participate as an attendant in a wedding party is supposed to be a great compliment. Bridesmaids, however, almost universally dread the dress. Just part of the recent upswing in "bridal insanity," the ugly bridesmaid dress has a psychology of its own.

The horrible bridesmaid dress has become a cliché that the wedding industry can't quite seem to get around. The horrible bridesmaid dress shows up frequently in the "clean out your closet" segments on television shows, cable wedding day disasters and even functions as the punch line for a commercial for shampoo. Brides seem to develop a kind of selective bad taste when picking dresses for four, five or eight of their closest friends to wear on the bride's big day.

Wedding cakes, flowers, reception dinners, picking the right band…wedding productions have spawned an industry all their own. The centerpiece of the event for most brides, however, is themselves and their dress. Thousands of dollars are spent on the bride's attire and much energy and attention is spent on making her feel beautiful. This, many brides will say vehemently and sometimes tearfully, is her day!

Weddings, and all things related, continue to have an appeal, no matter how complicated is the reality of being married. The ceremony itself has become a production for most brides(and for many grooms), one of the most interesting aspects of which is The Bridesmaid Dress. Despite having friends of all heights, weights and life conditions(pregnant!), brides continue to dress their attendants in the same color and style. The wedding industry has gamely tried to address this issue by offering dresses made in the same colors, but available in different styles. The problem, however, still continues. Brides pick hideous dresses for their bridesmaids and continue to claim that these can be "worn later." This would be less of an issue, but for the reality that most bridesmaids foot the bill for their celebratory gear. They could possibly grit their teeth and wear a salmon sheath designed for a size two woman with no hips, if they(a size eight with curved hips) didn't have to pay for the damned dress.

So, one has to wonder…does the bride want her attendants to look horrible?

Newlywed women everywhere would be very upset at the implication. These are their friends, they'd say, but perhaps the problem lies more in the psychology of the wedding display, rather than in how brides feel about their attendants.

Let's be honest, weddings are not just tender proclamations of couples' love. Brides and grooms are concerned with the look of the event. Like a stage show, they carefully plan where the tall attendants will stand and whether they'll look funny walking out with a shorter groomsman. For the greatest majority of brides, and those who support them, weddings are a moment in time when they get to be The Star. Attendants and their wedding attire function to frame the bride and groom almost like set pieces. In a much earlier era, brides wore their best dresses in which to be married and, if they had attendants, their friends wore their best dresses, as well. Coordinating the attire wasn't generally an issue.

The longing to feel special--to have a moment when everything is about you--is universal. While not all couples hanker after this kind of wedding, the great majority do. Couples can actually feel shamed by having a small, inexpensive wedding. Somehow, weddings have become a phenomena and it can be difficult to resist the insanity.

Perhaps the complexity of marriage, half of which will end in divorce, makes us want to mark the event with some sort of external stamp of approval. There now! You're Really Married! But this shouldn't mean a total loss of sanity when it comes to planning the celebration. Remember, brides, if you'd like your attendants to your friends after the wedding, put some thought into making them look beautiful on the stage, too.

Guilt -- A Pointless Exercise

You have sex with your best friend's girl…you have guilt. That's the way it's supposed to work, right? Guilt is the bad feeling you have when you do something wrong--but wrong is opened to a lot of interpretations. Of course, having sex with a friend's girl is considered guilt-worthy by most(unless he invites you to hit that and then we're talking a whole other thing).

Say you're in a relationship and your mate punches you. Nothing you do could make you deserve to be hit, but lots of abuse victims feel guilty. They "made" their loved one mad, said something stupid, did something bad, et cetera. They feel guilty for doing something that made their lover beat the crap out of them.

Is guilt a one-size-fits-all emotion no matter what the situation? Is it totally subjective and open to interpretation? What makes one person feel guilty doesn't faze others? And is there actually an point to it?

Usually when you do something you know you shouldn't do, feeling guilty is a natural consequence. Religions have been built on the emotion of guilt, some of them offering lists of what you shouldn't do. But how do you know the difference what you're really supposed to do and what you just feel you're supposed to do? It's not always easy to know.

What about cheating on your income tax or stealing paper clips from work? Same thing as lying to your mother? What if your mom asks you things that are none of her business(yes, there are some things that your mother doesn't have a right to know). Some people claim to feel guilty all the time about all kinds of things. Guilt, for them is like the sky being blue. Its just always there.

The emotion of guilt--as opposed to the verdict when a jury foreperson stands up and announces you're guilty--is in the eye of the beholder. Sometimes you just feel guilty, but what you feel doesn't always match up to objective reality. Can you find an objective reality about the things you should or shouldn't do? The emotions that don't make sense?

The word "guilt" is defined as a feeling of responsibility or remorse for some offense, crime, wrong, whether real or imagined. Its the imagined part that makes this emotion so problematic. Much of how we feel is derived from what we believe, about ourselves, others and the world. Our morals and values help us decide what we "should" and "shouldn't" do, but there are a wealth of situations that don't exactly have clear moral directions.

Truthfully, unless your feeling of guilt motivates you to turn yourself in for committing a robbery or some other crime, its probably not very useful. In fact, most of the time when you stew in guilt, you're just wasting energy. Usually, when people talk about having guilt, it doesn't make them behave any better or treat others with a great deal more respect. They just feel bad and then try to do something to distract themselves from the feeling. Guilt tends to be something you use to drain energy, but you may not actually behave any differently. It's the behaving differently that matters.

You may regret an action--just make sure you learn from it. Regret is understandable and can help you know the choices you don't want to repeat. Change your choices, don't just brood over them.

So, let non-productive guilt go. If you've done something you believe you shouldn't have or you've not done something you believe you should have--fix it. Day-to-day guilt is a crime against life. Quit wasting the emotional energy dragging around a load of guilt. Don't fool yourself, feeling bad doesn't make you a better person. If you can't--or won't--fix whatever is haunting you, feeling guilty is just self-indulgent. Let it go or act to make it better.

Does Parenting = Growing Petunias?

Who do I think I am to activate a kid's potential? Am I living the life I want to live? Parents too often get caught in the belief that its their responsibility to make sure their children grow up to be certain kinds of individuals. Its like we're raising a garden, rather than children. If we plant carrot seeds, we expect carrots to grow. Bright orange, pointed with leafy green tops. All carrots are pretty much the same, but growing a human is quite a different thing. This doesn't mean that we, as parents, get to abdicate our important role in our children's development. We are very important to them. We must, however, evaluate our impact on our children without attempting to moralize or "guilt" them into certain kind of behaviors.

Our parents may be critical of the way we parent. They may not understand how we are with their grandchildren. They may think we're over-indulgent or overly-strict. Their observations can be valuable to us as long as we’re not still reacting ourselves as our parents' kid. If we can be open to looking at our own behavior instead of being compliant or resistant children ourselves, grandparent feedback can be a good thing. Parenting challenges require us to grow up and look at what we really want in our lives. Who we really want to be. So, instead of looking at a certain parenting style, maybe we ask what you want in your life?

You may not still be a kid, but you still want certain things in your life.

Personal freedom is a major issue. The United States is built on the concept of freedom; yet we seem to be experience freedom less than ever. Does being free mean you can do whatever you want, whenever you want? Do we allow our children to define freedom for themselves or are we imposing our ideas on them? What would happen if they could do anything they wanted? Does being free mean having no consequences for our actions? I ask these questions to stimulate you to examine how you resolve these issues for yourself. How does that carry over to how you live with your children? If you allow yourself the freedom to keep a messy garage or bedroom, is it okay that your children do the same in their bedrooms? Or maybe your spouse is afforded this privilege, but you still expect your children to keep their rooms clean. Typically, parents say, "I want something better for my children" or "I work too much, trying to make a decent living to provide all the things everyone wants. I don't have time to be organized."

Ask yourself, whose decision is that? You've chosen to place some behaviors at a higher priority--work, child care, groceries--than other things. Keeping your room, desk or car clean.

Many parents complain that they don't get enough "respect" from their children. Parents say they want their children to "respect their teachers" or other authority figures. Again you need to ask, how do you respect your child? When you ask a question, are they allowed to say, "No." The very structure of a question means that those being "asked" get to choose the answer. Otherwise, the question isn't really a question! I am frequently amazed how parents will "ask" for their children's help and then become upset when children decline to do so. Respect has to work both ways.

Perhaps you are talking on the phone and your child wants to know to whom you are talking. Maybe, you don't want to tell them. Do they have the same right to refuse to tell you who they're talking with? You might insist that you’re the parent. You don't have to follow the same rules that your children do. But, that logic will only carry you so far. Remember, modeling is one of the most effective ways we humans learn. Your kids are watching you--watching how you act with them.

Language is also an issue for parents. They'll say, "I don't know where they learned to talk like that. We never use foul language at home." Language is representative of an attitude. In the forties and fifties, racial tensions in America were heightened more by the attitude of the adults than by the language of the whites and blacks. Do you complain about getting a speeding ticket or about paying taxes? Do you talk about how the government is cheating you by taking so much of your money? If so, your attitude might be perceived as adversarial with authority figures or government officials. These kind of attitudes have an impact upon our children. Why shouldn't they have contempt for the law when we've demonstrated the same? When parents hear kids call police officers ugly names, they're appalled. What did you call the officer as you were driving away from getting your last traffic ticket?

I am not suggesting parents can never voice frustrations in front of children, but that you also need to acknowledge your personal power. If you drive faster than the speed limit, you're choosing to run the risk of getting a speeding ticket. If you disagree with something a governmental body or an official does, talk to your children about voting for someone who supports your beliefs. Educate your children about the idea of making a difference. Use language to reflect attitudes you feel good about. Explore the attitude rather than trying to extinguish the language.

Parenting is one of the most challenging things we do in this world and ranks right up there with trying to maintain committed intimate relationship. Its harder than brain surgery and rocket science. Parenting has so many pitfalls and stumbling blocks that its easy to abdicate responsibility. "I can't control them," you'll say. Sometimes, we try to control everything in our children's world so much that we end up exhausted at the end of the day.

There are no easy answers, but it is important to explore where you are in the process. There is nothing like living with a child--particularly, a teenager--to make you examine yourself and your value system. You didn't have children to find the best way to be miserable. So examine yourself. Look at how you contribute to and participate in the experience you have in your family. This is the only way you can know what is working for you and what is not.

Life Changes & Depression

Everything is going so great…why do you feel so bad?

Marriage, a promotion on the job, retirement, a new child--these are all things people say they want. Reasons to be happy, so why do you feel so overwhelmed and struggle to keep from breaking down into tears? Even new situations--the same ones you've dreamed of--will bring new challenges. Sometimes the very thing you've fantasized about can involved a move, a new financial situation, new activities. This is a lot of change, all at once. While you may have dreamed of these changes and you expected to be smiling all day, every day, change usually comes packaged with some scary stuff, too.

You may think you're losing your mind. After all, you don't have a reason to be sad! Even admitting it can be hard, but don't think change isn't challenging. Even the longed-for can sometimes be overwhelming.

New relationship experiences--moving in together, getting married or an overdue break-up, can bring you face to face with issues that you've never dealt with before. Suddenly, your space, time and money are all different. No matter how much you may have talked about all these things, there will still be surprises and, sometimes, they won't be pleasant. Any significant new role change brings new expectations. You may expect certain things of yourself, and others may also have images of what change will bring, as well.

The parenting experience, for instance, is frequently loaded down with a wide variety of emotions and expectation. New parents have usually watched others parent and, as they approach parenthood themselves, may have told each other, "We'll never be like them. We'll be different with our kids." And you may be…but you may also find yourself doing and saying stuff you swore you wouldn't. Everything looks different from this perspective.

Life change brings, well, change. You're suddenly thrown into completely new situations and those things and people who made up your comfort zone may be completely changed. The dream job can require you to move to another city where you know no one. You may find yourself over-whelmed with new responsibilities and end up convinced that you can't do this job.

Even situations that are the stuff of fantasy, such as a lottery win, can have complications you didn't expect. Maybe you find the love of your life and she's a millionaire. You don't need to work anymore! Suddenly, the job that stressed you is no longer needed and you skip out the door. But after a few months of vacation, you can start feeling like you've slipped into another, unfamiliar universe. Like you're not really yourself anymore. A new parent who has decided to stay home with the baby might find her or himself floundering without a sense of self-definition.

Who am I now? Just Aiden's mother?

Life changes--even good ones--take some adjustment. The situation you've dreamed of may not fit you exactly and, even though others can't always understand, you may need to do some tweaking. Maybe you've always worked because you've had to. Most of us do. If you're comfortably retired, it may be time to think of the kind of job you'd like to do. Maybe you've been a computer technician who really likes to cook. Maybe cooking is like playing for you. You don't have to throw yourself into becoming a big time chef to enjoy your life. Even thinking about doing that can be overwhelming. You can, however, find a place to enjoy cooking for others. There are many options.

The secret is to find the life that works for you. This can be challenging, but can also make a world of difference. Whether you are a new parent who decides you need to work half time and you end up splitting baby care duties with your spouse, or you've married a millionaire and now you get to volunteer your time when you want to. Figure out what works for you and stop telling yourself that you're crazy for feeling depressed. Even good changes involved change and most have big requirements.