College Admissions Scandal

News broke Tuesday of a nationwide, multimillion dollar college admissions scandal. Andrew Lelling, an attorney for Massachusetts was quoted saying “There will not be a separate admissions system for the wealthy. And there will not be a separate criminal justice system, either…”

Lelling is wrong. There is now, always has been, and always will be, a separate admissions process for the wealthy. It will not go away. No matter who those wealthy are, no matter what legislation we pass- the rich will find a way.

Not because they are rich, but because they are parents.

Tiger Moms, Momma Bears, Daddy Warbucks, or just a sugar Daddy parents in America operate under the assumption, the idea, or even the charge, that it is their duty is to give their children every advantage possible in life. And where you attend college can in fact be a real advantage.

And the real word there is indeed “advantage”.

This, the idea that fighting for advantage in parenting is expected, is the biggest obstacle to a just and equitable world. Because as long as that is our system, the parents with the most resources will always win for their own, and those without, will continue to fight for table scraps.

American parents are raising their families in a hyper competitive world that is continually being painted as more perilous than ever. While impending doom (razor blades in Halloween candy) may not truly lurk around every corner, upward economic mobility has indeed been on a slow and steady decline. Wage stagnation looks to stretch from one generation into another and income over a career continues to correlate to educational attainment. College remains important, if not in fact, at least in the minds of concerned parents. Elite schools who admitted 15% of applicants a decade ago now only admit 6%. Parents are truly freaking out.

We live in a competitive environment that requires a level of engagement beyond the capacity of children, requiring proactive parents to set up a path to potential success for their kids. At the top levels this competition is cut throat and more often than not, the spoils go to the children of the best resourced parents.

When advising families in the college application process  I try to help them understand that for most of us, the name of the school we went to is much less important than the type of student a child has already proven to be. I work hard to help them find the right match of a school rather than chasing the school with the highest ranking. But if pressed, I will admit that for those who want to achieve remarkable things, those with the biggest aspirations, the most likely course is pretty narrow and goes through established pathways. There are a small number of schools that have produced presidents, Supreme Court Justices, and billionaires, and the odds of being the first from any given school, are incredibly small.

So what we have built is a competitive environment that gives the most benefit to those who already hold the most resources. But these well resourced parents are not just competing with the poor folks, but with each other. Again, this world is cut-throat. This environment leads to any effort to carve out a path, or channel resources to those who do not already have them- be it through state or federal funding or programs like affirmative action, to be immediately targeted as unfair.

Elite schools can afford to offer free schooling to poor kids for two reasons; first, because top schools are already well funded. Most educational donations go to the schools that already have the most money. These schools are indeed rich. Second, these schools can offer free education because the number of poor students who are accepted, is incredibly low.

The top predicting data point for who gets into an elite college is the wealth of the parent.

This happens for a constellation of reasons. These families tend to live in richer neighborhoods with better funded schools. These better funded schools tend to have more qualified staff, more stable student population, and a historical pipeline of feeding high school kids into elite colleges. These parents also tend to spend money on tutors, test prep courses, and specific extra curriculars that align with college expectations. These families also tend to make up the bulk of legacy admissions, or in other words, the parents of these families often attended elite schools themselves.

So my advice to financially struggling parents who are hoping their child will go to Harvard, is to stop saving for tuition and start spending now on a higher mortgage and tutors. Stop investing in basketball or track, and focus on fencing or crew. Even then, know that there will be some other parent willing to buy a building or bribe a coach in order to stack the deck in their favor.

As long as parenting is a high stakes zero sum self interested gladiator tournament we can never hope for any real semblance of an equitable meritocracy, not just in admissions buy in anything.

This mind-set, or maybe this reality, is why people hire their nephew or niece in both corporations and construction. It is why people lie to school districts about their address and why people cross borders without legal documents. We cringe at the thought of one demographic having privilege or advantage over another- we all say we want equality, that is until it comes to parenting.

Because of this, any proposal that would move anything, be it admissions or employment, to a place that would be fair or meritocratic is going to need to be bigger and more expansive than any of us may be willing to accept.

 

Because of parents.

 

Parenting is the best indisputable evidence that we don’t really believe in a meritocracy. Because we are either acting under the assumption that it doesn’t exist so we must fight to get our kids a fair shake, or it does exist and we are fighting to get our kids an advantage.

The Icarus Conundrum: a flight manual for conformity

While many know the tale of Icarus, the guy who flew with waxen wings, then traveled too close to the sun and fell, few realize that his father, Daedalus, made it through that flight just fine. In our focus on failure we forget that a guy crafted wings and successfully flew like a bird.

Sure one of the two who attempted it died (a full ½) but the one who lived, accomplished something so amazing and absurd, that he should be celebrated. Focusing on failure can be such a downer.

I have flown many times myself and no one considers it an accomplishment. So I’m pretty much the same as Daedalus. On the other hand my nephew has learned to be more than just a passenger, taking control of his own story, which my wife fears makes him destined to be Icarus. She protested us flying together and made me show her documentation of my life insurance policy before reluctantly consenting.

It is on odd thing for those of us accustomed to regimented boarding procedures that begin curb side, and march you to, and through, seat belt instructions, to just walk right up to a small tin can, then simply climb inside and fly. The process felt so… casual- but I was too excited for it to be just that.

This was a first for me. New ground.

Or new air.

Whatever.

I had never been so happy to be crammed into such a small place, overlapping the passenger next to me. He happened to be my father. I am used to sitting at a desk, or in traffic, and when my miniature mother took over the controls, despite us flying between two mountains and her not being able see over the dashboard, I was happy. I loved it. I understood how Icarus would want to climb higher and higher, I wanted my nephew to roll and loop, but I had been warned by that myth and I didn’t want to die.

So we flew straight and lived.

Thinking back on my little voyage and appreciating the value of humility in youth versus vain hubris, I wonder a little about Metion- Daedalus’s Dad. Had Deadalus never ventured out, pushing beyond and above his own father like his son Icarus did, no one would have ever flown at all. Where is that lesson taught?

Thus is the paradox of generations and family. Of innovation and respect. Of wisdom or adventure. How does one, or we, value both in these couplings or all in the big picture? Should we be conservative out of respect for the wisdom gained by our predecessors at the expense of progress toward things that could be better? Do we strive and push past the others that came before, risking separation when they are unable or unwilling to make the same trip? Where is the balance? Where is that myth?

Much like Sway, I do not have the answers.

What I do have is an offering for “The Trad”, mocker of my footwear and needler of my regular faux-pas, at the risk of Icarus-ish disrespect toward my parents, who are truly wiser than I… I have indeed flown past the footwear from whence I came- though my journey may admittedly not be complete. I am also much larger and younger than they which will be necessary in defending myself once they read this. Mom taught me the value of kicking shins when you can’t reach your opponent’s chin.

Which would hurt more were she not wearing socks and sandals.

 

I Am Not a Protester: I am a parent

I am not a protester. That has never been my “thing”. But that was before a news report made my daughter cry.

I am not opposed to protesting, or protesters per-se, I just generally think my time and skills are better suited elsewhere. I have a fundamental, even primal, understanding of how those who are normally being protested against, react to protests, and it is almost never in a way that moves the observer closer to the ideal the protesters are pushing. Even if message confusion and ideology conflation are set aside, I simply think other tactics are more effective. At least for the goals I would like to see the greater “us” achieve.

But yesterday was different. I didn’t change, but my needs did.

When my 13 year old heard the radio reporting the “unite the right” march in Charlottesville, including one participant driving his car into a crowd of anti-racists, she began to cry. I asked her why and she said it was because she was afraid.

Afraid for her own safety.

Because she is black.

I often complain that everyone in the suburbs, which now includes us, are too afraid of everything. We think anyone and everything is prowling just out of sight ready to rape pillage and plunder us individually. We build walls, fences, gates, and make everything private in the name of safety. “We” advocate concealed carry for our own protection, are willing to cede rights to police for “our” protection, and prioritize national defense over humanitarian aid for “our protection”. And here was my daughter hearing about some events off on the other side of the country and she was crying out of fear that this meant she was not safe. My first instinct was to roll my eyes.

Because I’m white.

I am also a grown man. I am by experience and by design the most inherently safe of all. She is 13 and aware enough to see the world around her and think about what she sees. She is old enough to consider motivations, and power dynamics, and historical context. She is aware enough to know that not everyone is one way or the other, but at 13, the thing she is struggling the hardest to understand, is herself.

I do my best to help her respect Police officers and authority in general, but when shots are fired far too often the character to which she can most closely identify with, is the black person being shot. No matter who it is that shot them. When she hears our president speak out about what is dangerous in the world or wrong with the country, more often than not she identifies with the one being called dangerous and not the man behind the podium. And when she sees and hears about a crowd of white men rallying against black people- where I see the guys who look like me and easily dismiss their absurdity- she sees herself in the woman killed by their car.

Why wouldn’t she be afraid?

Who, or what, or where, is she getting messages to counteract all those others? Every parent knows the danger of their own incessant droning being drowned out or dismissed. She hears us at home, but where else? Who else is saying to a young black girl, “I see you and you are safe.”? I thought about this sincerely and I didn’t like the answer.

So we went to a rally.

We went so my daughters could see other people, friends or strangers, who were willing to publicly say that white supremacy is wrong. We went so my daughters could hear people honk their horns to show support. We went so my daughter could be a little black girl, and people would show out loud, that they see her. I wanted her to be surrounded by these people and feel safe.

So no, I am not a protester. I do not think my presence there changed the mind of anyone in opposition. I do not think the waving flags and catchy signs swayed anyone who previously disagreed. I still think my skills are better suited to something akin to lobbying not rallying, but no matter my skill set or political stance, what I most need to be- is a parent.

That One Place Everyone is so Excited About: Disneyland

When my first child was old enough to understand words and look at pictures, I began showing her images of Hawaii and calling them Disneyland. I did this in hopes that when her peers and surrounding adults would inevitably begin celebrating and pushing this fabled “land”, she would be under the impression they loved Honolulu and that she would imagine herself there… not Anaheim. 

Because I would rather spend all of my money taking my child to the North Shore than some manufactured place with people dressed up as cartoon characters. I figure both places are about as equally expensive (truth), so I might as well trick my children into making me happy.

As with most preconceived notions of parenting, my plan failed.

Upon realizing that in large part due to current proximity, my children and spouse would full-on demand a Disneyland visit, I full-on planned to send them along without me. Yes I love my family and truly enjoy watching them be happy, but I am not sure my being there to see it is worth $200.

Do you know how much prosciutto I can buy for $200?

I understand that the things I have typed so far, already qualify me for some sort of firing squad. I do not intend to be sacrilegious, seditious, or even traitorous, I just don’t want to spend $800 for my family to see someone dressed up as Snow White.

Everyone tells me it isn’t just that. But it is in fact also that.

Let me attempt to be objective about this. I will admit that:

The production value of everything they do is far above and beyond whatever “par” is.

The rides, especially roller coasters, are fun.

There is at any given time and in any given place, something to do or see.

The crowd management systems and procedures are surprisingly effective, and do in fact minimize the horrors of waiting forever behind hordes of everyone to do something fun for a brief moment.

The food while not being cheap, is not bad.

My wife and children loved the place almost more than they love me. They might strike the word almost. I added it to make myself feel better.

So, having admitted all of that let me list what Disney is not:

Near the beach.

Affordable.

An actual kingdom.

The Devil.

Heaven.

As good as Six Flags.

 

Being a Kid

When you are little the world is controlled by giants. Everything is taking directions from someone else whose kneecaps look you in the eye.

When and what to eat. Or not to eat. What to wear. Where to live and to whose family you belong. Everything is decided and dictated by someone else and you have no say in who that is. They decide if you are rich or poor, hungry or overfed, blonde or brown haired. Everything is up to them. They control everything and when you are young, your only hope is to eventually get taller. Getting taller takes time, it takes years, and years are the longest things there are.

When you are little the world is measured out from task to task. School comes right after breakfast which comes after you get dressed right after you wake up. Then you color, then a snack, and then a nap. You play. At the end you clean up and then you wait, and if the worst happens, you wait ten minutes because they forgot about you and you almost died because you knew they weren’t coming. But those horrible minutes are erased by cartoons which lead into dinner. After dinner they like to torture you. Sometimes baths but always bed. Bed, where you lie there in the dark being quiet forever until it all ends. Why do they make us do that? It is boring, it is scary, and most of all it is long.This is a day, and to grow up they want us to wait a year? How many bath-times is that? We all want to grow up faster but they won’t let us. They say it isn’t them, it is just how it is, but however it is, it is still out of our control. Just like everything.

They tell us to enjoy it and be happy. They tell us not to cry. They say they wish they could go back and be where we are, then turn around and give themselves another scoop of ice cream and stay up late watching television. We never got extra ice cream and always had to go to bed. They say they want what we have but they never do it. They stay up all night.

Building a Child, Reluctantly

I am probably not the best parent in the world. I am definitely not the best parent in my house. I normally think of myself first, my wife second, and then there are these small people with these endless needs and demands that normally don’t fit neatly into my ideal plans on how to spend my day. I am currently working on being less self-centered, but it is hard to do since everywhere I go, I find myself tagging along. I am hard to shake. Not only am I hard to shake, but I’m also a little bit lazy.

This is problematic in that when the kids are too lazy to clean their room, I am frustrated because I am also too lazy to clean their room. There are those who will (and if they are reading, already have in their minds) retort that a good parent doesn’t clean the kid’s room because they need to learn to do it themselves. I make no claims at being a good parent and find myself in a pickle because teaching a kid to clean their room is much harder than simply cleaning it myself, and as stated before, I am too lazy to clean their room.

With this as context, I was sitting in the living room reading The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Vol II, when my six year old looked up from her note pad and asked, “Dad, what are these things called?” pointing to the door hinges. “Those are called hinges.” She went back to the couch and her note pad, then asked, “How do you spell hinges?” I answered appropriately.

“Dad. Will you build me a house?”

She presented to me a drawing, plans really, of a house, complete with directions of where each “nale” should be placed and instructions on putting h-i-n-g-e-z on one side of the door. I was impressed with her level of forethought and terrified, not by the thought of saying no to this child, I’m good at that, but rather terrified at the amount of work building a house would take.

“Uhhhh, we already live in a house.”

“No Dad. Like a small one. Like maybe this big,” she said holding her hand about four inches above her head.

“No.”

“Then can I build one?”

A child willing to do something I was unwilling to do is hard to turn down. Maybe I was enticed by the possibilities this principle might introduce, like maybe I say no to doing my taxes and she offers to do them for me. Paying bills? Going to my job? This had possibilities. “Sure you can build a house, but it’s going to take some planning. Where is this house going to live?”

“Out back.”

“The courtyard out back looks very nice. What if I don’t want to look at your house? We are renting our house, what if we move? How will your house fit through the door when we want to move it? Nails don’t come apart.”

She bit the back of her pencil and looked up at the ceiling. She didn’t have an answer. This was perfect, because I am not only lazy, but I am also a know it all. “What if you use hinges instead of nails? The whole thing can fold up like Ikea. Go re-draw those plans.” She re-drew the plans.

Were I to write a book on being a great parent, which would be fiction, I would recount all the events that followed. Not only did I allow my child to pursue her dreams but I let her use a power saw in the process. My theory on fatherhood is that if you are lucky enough to get a good kid, don’t mess them up. This is best done by getting out of the way. If getting out of their way takes effort, like getting off the couch, then by all means let the child get themselves out of the way by building their own house out back. This is what I did. Rather, this is what she did.

My next plan is figuring out how to motivate this six year old to want to pay rent. After all, her house is on my property.

Repulsion vs. Propulsion: Knott’s Berry Farm

I like Roller Coaster’s. I like my family. I dislike lines but accept them as a part of civilized society. There are however, some lines that should never be crossed, or some lines, that stretch so long that you should cross them on your way somewhere else.

Despite proximity I have yet to venture on over to Disneyland. The price of admission is way past where I draw the line. Word on the street is that the lines at Knott’s Berry Farm are much, much shorter, and cheaper. Not riding roller coasters when roller coasters are available is a unacceptable in my wife’s mind so she drew a line in the sand. Not really in the sand, but rather on the calendar, and along with that line in the sand she declared, “Here marks the end of summer. Before this date, you (me), will join your family at Knott’s Berry Farm!”

So I did.

So did a lot of other people.

It had been nearly a decade since I had been strapped into an open air train that goes upside down and in my memory, it was fun.

I had a lot of time standing in line to reminisce and watch as screaming trains zipped over head. Hmmm. fun.

Having been lulled into a near coma while standing mostly motionless for 45 minutes I found my self unprepared for what was about to happen. I took a seat in a carriage built for someone half my size, buckled my seat belt, and was pleased when the pimply 16 year old double checked to make sure I was safe. So far so good.

But then this train took off like a rocket. No slow climb up a mountain, no click-click-click-pause before the rush, just explosive speed right from the start.

I screamed. Out loud.

I don’t normally do that sort of thing. But when that contraption slammed me back inn my seat, spun me upside down, then swirled in a corkscrew, I felt like expressing my joy out loud. I loved it. All 20 seconds of it.

I had forgotten how fun physical motion can be. All day I sit at a desk, then I walk around a little, maybe drive my car in a straight line at a reasonable speed for a little while, and then, when I find the time, I exercise a little. This had fooled me into thinking my life included motion. I was wrong.

Commuting to work is not the same as rocketing from 0-80 mph in 3 seconds and rocketing, in any form, is exciting. I like rocketing. It was worth standing in line. But, and this is a big but, I was also reminded of what is not worth standing in line and paying a lot of money: cotton candy, pretend cowboys, medleys of Broadway show tunes performed by 18 year olds, and interacting with humans dressed up like cartoon characters. Somewhere between the age of three and now I have lost my appreciation for all of those things.

But my kids haven’t, and I love my kids.

So while I contemplate where the lines of reason lie, regarding fun, magic, money, and facilitating childhood wonder as proscribed by the corporation of Mickey Mouse, I realize I may have to bend. MAY have to bend. Eventually.

And I also realize I need to find a way to get in the passenger seat of a jet fighter. Maybe a race car… or a spaceship. Anything more exciting than a desk.

 

Mount Rubidoux: the beginnings of repentance

Children have a way of naturally highlighting the deficiencies in their parents. Quite often these adult shortcomings are obvious to everyone except the specific parent in question. We parents get caught up in minutia, lunches, pick-ups, drop-offs, lost homework, lost shoes, bed time, sugar intake, oil changes, lessons, stop hitting, say thank you, and on, and on. It’s like running with your head down.

Then your six year old, the one who spends no time thinking about any of these things, asks, “Dad, have you ever been on top of a mountain?”

“Uhhhh, yes. Of course I have. On top of a mountain is in fact my favorite place to be. I would rather be on top of a mountain than anywhere else.”

My answer was a little indignant. Of course I’d been on a mountain. I grew up on a mountain. If I were to divide up my identity like a pie perhaps two of the six slices would be labeled “mountain man”. It was not till that moment, sitting in a car in the suburbs, that I realized my child had never been on a mountain. She had never seen me on a mountain. Never sat on the summit and felt the joy of looking out over the world. The simultaneous peace and excitement felt when the ground drops away in all directions.

I have never given that little girl that experience.

Or a pony.

Or a marshmallow the size of a house.

She is deprived.

“Are we on a mountain now?”

“No, we are in a Target parking lot.”

“I want to go on top of a mountain. Can I go on top of that mountain?”

She was pointing up at Mt. Baldy.

“Maybe once you get bigger you can go up there.”

“Have you been up there?”

“No… No I have not.”

Not only have I not been on top of Mt. Baldy but I haven’t been anywhere for far too long. No, strike that. I haven’t been nowhere for a very long time. I had spent so long, and my children have spent their entire lives, living in a place that is so much somewhere that getting to nowhere is quite hard.

I had never taken the six year old to nowhere.

I do not live nowhere now. Nor do I live somewhere. We live in between.

Repentance doesn’t happen overnight but you must start right away. My supplication for outdoor forgiveness began in small steps; steps about the size of six year old legs.

Mount Rubidoux in nearby Riverside has a summit of only 1,329 feet. It has a paved trail. It has a tower, a cross, a large American flag, and on one Saturday morning, a very proud little girl.

On Fatherhood: Miracles

 

Let me first state that the first order of good fatherhood, and the only one on which I can claim expertise, is finding and keeping the best woman possible. In my experience this is best achieved through dumb luck, hard work, and a belief in miracles. You see, fatherhood is a series of miracles.

The first miracle of fatherhood happened in my life when my wife agreed to marry me. There is no real explanation for how or why this happened, but I can testify that it did.

I realized the second miracle approximately three months after the birth of my first child. It was late one evening, I was holding this small person in my arms, looking into her deep brown eyes, and I realized that this child was in fact, alive. It was true. I watched as she breathed in, then out, then in again. She spit up on my shirt. She was definitely still alive; a miracle.

This was not the miracle I expected.

The child was very expected. Say what you will, it is very hard for the birth of a child to sneak up on anyone. We had two years of time to become a good team, then nine months of incubation, all followed by a very dramatic episode that resulted in a very small, very alive, little girl. Thousands of years and billions of births came before us, so none of these things were unexpected. These were very natural, very intentional, very, yes, expected. They were also very external.

The miracle I did not expect was so unexpected, and here is the strange part, that it never actually happened. That is right. The unexpected miracle was realized when the miracle I did expect didn’t happen.

Sitting there, looking at this beautiful little life, I realized I was still just me. I wasn’t different. Inside I still felt like I did three months, nine months, Two years ago. I did not feel more loving, think I was any smarter, no cosmic shift, I was still me. Just-me.

And after three months, she was still alive.

A miracle.

That was nine years and another kid ago. The miracles keep coming.

Watching kid number one at the bar in ballet class I see an unmistakable, undeniable grace. Her mother, despite being the best woman I should have never caught, does not have that grace, and I am still just me. Watching kid number two sit on the naughty step after throwing a shoe, I see a sort of bravery, the sort that looks a person ten times her size directly, unflinchingly, in the eye. She does not cringe, she does not shrink; she is absolutely not me. But I am still me.

That is the unexpected miracle.

After all these years I still feel like me and they are not just OK, they are great.

Now sure, I have changed, I have grown, but nothing miraculous. It has all been very labored, very progressive. A natural growth that comes from repetitive actions and climatization. Remember miracle number one?

A large part of what makes her great is that she does not do everything. Parenting is meant to be a team sport and she is the John Stockton of motherhood. She can shoot just fine but she is great at passing. Thanks to her ability I can change any diaper at any time. I know all the words to Good Night Gorilla, can make a pony tail, and have an arguably miraculous ability to leave the house five minutes late for school yet still drop the kids off ten minutes early. All the while I am still just me and she knows it.

That is the miracle of fatherhood.

We are not granted magical powers. We do not rise in esteem through our skill or our innate qualities. We are not transformed from without, nor do we experience this huge flash from within. Most of the time I experience a sort of nothing. A sameness. Normality.

But if I try. If I show up and then show up again. I get to see miracles.

Not some form of super me. Just me.

And still; miracles.

Photo Essay: I Saw This Coming

 

And then….