Tag Archives: parent-child relationships

Dear Vince

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VINCE

This is another one of my treatment assignments. My dear mother has been waiting for me to publish this for a while since it’s actually written by her.  Well, sort of.

It was written by me during a phase of treatment in which we were learning about the ripple effect. Not quite like the butterfly in China causing a hurricane in Iowa.  Or whatever.  This is more like how my actions, however insignificant they may have seemed at the time, affected my friends, family, and society.  The assignment was to write a one page letter from a victim in our ripple.  I chose my mom pretty quickly because I believe my actions have had the greatest effect on her over time.  It wasn’t supposed to be hurtful or degrading, but simply state, from her point of view,  my actions and how they made her feel. It was well received by counselor and peers, but I still don’t know if I really hit the mark. I guess I’ll find out soon. I wrote it from the time just after my arrest for my current charge.  Here goes:

Vince, I haven’t seen or heard from you in so long.  But for now at least I know where you are and that you are safe.  When I heard you were arrested I can’t say I was surprised but I was still sad and hurt.  On the other hand I was grateful that you might have another chance at recovery.

In your nearly five years of sobriety, you shined.  You were always a favorite with the kids in both our, and our extended families.  They looked up to you. They admired you, and loved you. We all loved you since the day you were born.  Then, without any warning, you disappeared.  For the second time in a decade, you fell off the face of the earth.  Because of your history, we knew more or less what was going on.  And from our experience we knew that any attempt to communicate with you would have been shot down.

After a couple years, the second time around, you showed up and said flat out you were using again and if I wanted to be part of your life I needed to accept that.  Well, I did.  It was tough.  You drank so much and so openly with your friends but you seemed happy.  But every time I would bring up the future, or school, or family, you shut down and didn’t want to talk about it. So I stopped bringing it up.

Then after eight years you were gone again.  The closest friends you have ever had couldn’t tell me where you were.  They were just as confused and upset as I was.  For a while I was so afraid that you would show up dead in an alley or on the side of the road, but then you showed up on the news, and you were finally somewhere again.

Since then we have become closer than ever, as a result in large part, by you being open and honest about everything with me and more importantly yourself.  I’m glad you are excited about being where you are. I hear in your voice and in your letters the same enthusiasm about recovery you had when you left Hazelden and Florida.  Me and the rest of the family will be here for you when you get out.  You will always have our full support in every way as long as you remain active in your recovery.

—

And that’s it.  When I was writing it I recall feeling sad for the first time in treatment.  I don’t often feel emotions, and rarely do they make me feel bad but this assignment did just that.  Even though that wasn’t the point of it, I thought of a lot of bad times I’ve had with her and because of being high or drunk nearly all of my adult life.  I hope you get out of it what you can mother, and I’m sure I’ll hear your thoughts on it in the morning!

For the rest of you. Well my day to day life is a struggle.  I don’t have a job yet.  I am not worried. My agents are not worried.  But I can tell my mom is.  I communicate with the world three times a week for an hour at A.A. meetings, through this blog and on Facebook.  I do not like talking to people outside of my family or very few friends, all of which I was incarcerated with.  Shit.  I’m over 700 words.  Until next time.

Uncomfortably numb

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VINCE

Sorry for the delay in posting this. I planned on writing it after my meeting last night and, well, I failed. It was a great meeting. Only the second I have been able to attend since my release because of scheduling difficulties and a complete inability to communicate with my I.S.R. agents. We are supposed to call a voicemail number anytime we deviate even slightly from our schedule that we submit every week. I should back up and say that every morning before 10 AM I have to call the voicemail with my schedule for the day, which I basically just read off of the written schedule I have already submitted. Sound redundant yet? Anywho, for the first week, I had the times for all of my meetings incorrect, and I had not left myself nearly enough time for transportation so I called every day I had a meeting to ask permission to alter and nobody ever called me back. EVER! So I stayed at home which is the protocol for when there’s any confusion.  We do not have a number that we can call to communicate with a person. I have spoken with many of my fellow ex-offenders and they say they are experiencing the same frustrations. But hey, what a luxury to not be behind bars, right?

St. Paul is what I consider to be my hometown. I haven’t lived here in a decade, but there are still some familiarities about it. In the nearly two weeks since my release from C.I.P., I have progressed from complete confusion and overload, to confusion and overload. I’ve gone out grocery shopping a few times and always I have trouble. Here are some examples of what makes me want to run….. Did you know that at Aldi (kind of like a grocery store) they don’t have bags to put your groceries in? True story. So after I take a quick tour around the store looking for anything at all in a size larger than individual, and canned fake duck meat, per special request from mom, I realize I need to go somewhere I can stretch out my very limited funds. There were only two people in line until I decided I wanted to check out what I had, then everybody seemed to sense that I was on a tight two-hour leave from house arrest and they all fell into line before me. Move forward ten minutes– So the clerk asks me if I want to buy bags and I just stare, as if I don’t understand the question, because I don’t. So she asks me again and I say no and she just puts my stuff back in the cart. Fortunately for me, I had been sent along my way with a number of tasks to complete along with all my shopping for the week so I had a bag of bags that I think I was supposed to bring to a store, or maybe throw in a river. I don’t know. And then I went to Cub Foods where everything went much smoother.

I think the term anxiety would suffice. I’ve never been diagnosed but it seems like that’s what I’m dealing with. Wherever I am, I want to leave. I blame others for being the cause but it is probably me. For six months we were not allowed to speak or even look at people without permission, we were told what to do, never having to ask questions. Now out here I am left to my own devices. I don’t know how to talk to people. I can’t sit still. I bummed a cigarette from somebody after the meeting last night just so I could talk to them. Then I left and drove straight home with 45 minutes of free time left, and I don’t get any free time. What do people do? O.K. I give up. Mother is hammering…. next time. Bye.

 

 

 

BeFUDdled

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ANNE

I am writing this on Sunday to post on Monday, which is Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. I will go to early services, then spend much of the day outside. I love the High Holidays because, for one thing, the weather is always beautiful—crisp and cool, with the leaves starting to change colors and the sky intensely blue. Even though I no longer believe in god, I feel it’s important to participate in community, so I go to services. Now there’s a new prayer book for my stream of Judaism, Reform Judaism, that acknowledges many people’s disbelief. I don’t know if the synagogue I’m going to has it yet, but I look forward to buying a copy. I think that’ll make me feel more “legitimate” walking in the door.

In the evening some friends will come over for dinner. Vince is looking forward to making a real hearty, holiday meal.

—

Vince has been home for five days. There was so little information available ahead of time that I didn’t clock on to the fact that he’s on house arrest. I don’t know the difference between probation and parole but I thought he’d be on one or the other and would be able to come and go as he pleased, as long as he was doing constructive things like job hunting or going to AA meetings.

But no, he is confined to the house 24/7 except for job hunting from 9-2 Monday through Friday and other things he has to clear with the agents. So for instance he proposed an AA meeting on Saturday night and that was approved but he hadn’t researched how far away the meeting would be or, more important, that there was a meeting at that time—which there isn’t. So he’s looking forward to fine-tuning his schedule.

Yesterday he had a two-hour window approved to go shopping. I thought he would enjoy the farmers market, with all the colors, choices, and people watching. Not to mention, it’s cheap. I dropped him off with some reusable shopping bags and went to park the car. These are the bags.

A few minutes later I got a text from him:

I don’t like it here. There are no instructions. And I’m the only one with purses.

These are the “purses,” aka shopping bags.  Do they look gay?

Bags

He was overwhelmed. I joined him and explained that everything was “two dallah.” We consulted our list for the holiday dinner and he seemed to relax into the experience. Then we went into the adjacent Asian market, which was even more crowded and full of the smells of live fish. He got a kick out of some of the items:

Fud

Last stop, Aldi, also crowded. I am normally a very slow and deliberate shopper but even I was sick of the shopping crowds, so we threw a bunch of stuff in the cart and got back to the house with time to spare.

—

It is definitely a big adjustment for me to live with someone. The condo is 825 square feet, not large by American standards.

This morning we both got up and out of the house at 7:30 am for exercise. He ran, I walked. I stopped in at the nearby YWCA to get membership info and picked up a scholarship form for Vince. I gave it to him when I got home and won’t ask him every day, “Did you fill out that form?” It’s none of my business.

On the other hand, when I walked into the bathroom and saw some clothing tags next to the wastebasket instead of inside it, that was my business.

“Vince, what would they have done at boot camp if you’d thrown trash on the floor next to the wastebasket?”

“Ah, someone would have picked up after me,” he joked. I think he was joking. Anyway, the tags were gone next time I looked. No drama.

So that’s all I have to do for a year—know when to say something and when to bite my tongue. So far there has been no yelling, eye rolling, sighing, or crying.

A great day for freedom

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VINCE

It’s good to be home. After 15 months of incarceration, I’m finally able to type my own words. The first few days have been fairly uneventful. I’ve mostly been relaxing, healing, and setting up my schedule for this week. I took the train down a good portion of University Avenue and back. There were a lot of people everywhere. it’s overwhelming. But I survived. I have a few more posts coming from my last few days in Willow River. Then it’s on to the next phase of my life. Thank you to all our followers, I hope it has been helpful and entertaining at the very least. Here’s the last few posts from prison.

8-2-15   On day two, our first full day of boot camp, we had our initial weigh-in. I had arrived in St. Cloud at an alarming 216 pounds. I did a little better when i got to Moose Lake at 201, with a body-fat percentage of 14.4%. Today we had our final weigh-in. When I saw the numbers appear, I was shocked. 173 pounds and 9.5% body-fat. I succeeded in both of my fitness goals! Then we ran our test-out mile. My entrance mile was 11:14. I shaved off four and a half minutes. One mile in 6:45. I was breathless after i ran but it still felt good.

I feel good about myself in so many ways. I am so ready to get out of here.

OK, that’s all for now. Typing is very frustrating for me. I need to work on that.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Out

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ANNE

I pride myself on being highly organized, but I lost the letter Vince had sent me that outlined the schedule for the day of his release.  I called the facility and asked what time I needed to be there.  The guy I talked to was very nice, and said Vince was a “great kid” and a “known agate collector.”  It was my first positive interaction with the corrections system.

I found out later that Vince received a demerit because I made this call.

—

I left the house at 7:30 am to drive up to the little town of Willow River, population 403 plus 142 inmates at the correctional facility.  Here are some photos of Willow River:

photo 1 photo 2

I had dug out a long-sleeved, high-necked shirt from my winter clothes so there would be no chance I could get either of us in trouble.  After all, this would be their last chance to fuck with me in person.  But when I arrived at the facility half the women there for the release of their loved ones were wearing plunging cleavage and skin-tight tights.

We were shown into a gymnasium with a long row of empty chairs in the front facing us.  The warden or whoever she was made a short speech, then the two graduating squads marched in.  The first one was led by a guy who could be a real competitor on American Idol.  There were no cameras or cell phones allowed, which is too bad because he was really impressive.  He lead Hotel Squad—17 guys—into the room, belting out the boot camp slogans in an old timey, spiritual sort of call and response.

Then it was Vince’s squad’s turn—India Squad.  He had told me that someone else had been chosen to lead them out, but there was Vince doing it!  I’m still not clear on what happened to the other guy.  And while Vince wouldn’t make it to the finals on American Idol, I was very moved that he was the leader of his squad.

There were various speeches by the head of the chemical dependency and education programs, which no one could hear because of the crying and otherwise-noisy kids in the room.  Then each prisoner stood up and stated the length of his original term (between 48 and 100 months), what he had learned (patience was the one I recall hearing most often), and who he had to thank for helping him make it through.

All the guys thanked their families and the boot camp staff.  One guy thanked The Lord.  Vince mentioned the boot camp counselors by name but didn’t mention me or anyone else outside of the program.

I knew in that moment I needed to:

  1. get myself back to Alanon; and
  2. schedule some weekends away, by myself.

—

An hour later, we were on the road back to St. Paul.  It’s no exaggeration that Vince was released with only the clothes on his back, a folder full of papers, and one month worth of medication for his Restless Legs Syndrome.

He asked to stop at a gas station.  “The first thing every one of us guys wants to do is play scratch off tickets,” he said.

“I guess it’s better than buying meth,” I said.  “And I saw a billboard for gambling addictions on the way up so you know that help is available.”  He laughed.

Twice during the graduation ceremony, they had said that this second phase of boot camp–house arrest–would be harder than incarceration.  That’ll be true for me, too.  My first challenge is, now that I’ve made clear my low opinion of gambling, to let it go.  I have a right to state my opinion—once.  Saying it over and over would be an attempt to control and manipulate.

More on the day later, but here are some photos of Vince shopping at Walmart.

photo 3photo 4

The End. The Beginning.

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VINCE

Everything seems to be falling into place.  Maybe not in the order I want it to, but aligning nonetheless.  I volunteered to be one of the two in-house facilitators of the AA meeting, in addition to the NA meeting.  It’s been a while since I lead a meeting but it is something I enjoy and have a lot of experience doing.  It’s all about service work.  Starting it here will not only make me look good with my case worker but makes me feel good inside.

—

I’m sitting in study hall, nice and quiet, when a man starts banging loudly on a table, starts crying, and leaves the room.  I finally saw somebody snap.  That’s the only explanation.  He’s been here as long as I have, I hope they don’t kick him out.  He’s a good guy, but this place can make you revisit some pretty bad places in your head.

—

What a day.  Restorative Justice has a way of making me feel good, even with seven oozing blisters on my hands from shoveling tons of wet sand.

After breakfast (which is after aerobics), nine of us donned our reflective vests and hopped in the van, trailer in tow, and headed for Hinkley.  We love riding in the van.  And we were treated to a 40-minute trip.  We were told we would be working hard, and that we were going to work on a house for Habitat for Humanity.  Both statements were true.

Essentially we dug a four foot moat around the 30’ x 60’ house, two feet deep, four feet wide.  Then we put blue Styrofoam insulation down to guard against frost.  Then, after three hours of shoveling the sand out, we shoveled it back in.  Ugh.

In the middle of the operation, I did get a side job of varnishing six wooden doors.  That’s something I have some experience with and enjoy and, well, it’s way easier.  But I still ended my day with load after load on the scoop shovel.  Each scoop no less than 50 pounds.  Our uniforms were destroyed.  We were bleeding.  We were hungry and tired.

And after all of that, the man in charge gave us a tour of the house and said it was being built for a single mother of three who had been working for five years taking care of mentally and physically disabled adults, but couldn’t make ends meet and was now homeless.  A tear came to his eye when he thanked us for our work.  There may have been some tears in our eyes too, or maybe I just had some sand in my eyes.

He told us how generous Wells Fargo was to donate the property.  3M paid HFH for the opportunity to have volunteers come and insulate the entire house.  Whirlpool donates appliances to every—every HFH house.  And an un-named source donates the highest quality and efficient furnaces, water heaters, and air conditioners.  And countless people donate their time in any way they can.

For their house, the soon-to-be-owner must put in 260 hours of her own time on the house, put $100 down, and pay a mortgage of $300 a month, interest free.

Yeah, I feel good because I worked hard for somebody who is in need.  I’d like to do more things like that when I get out.

[ANNE: This will be Vince’s last post from inside prison because … he is being released today!  As you read this, I will be in Willow River watching his graduation ceremony.  Then he will walk out the door, with the clothes on his back and about $300.  I will have an avocado in the car for him.  We’ll drive straight to a 1:30 pm appointment in St. Paul with his ISR agent.  Then I will bring him home.  I got the landline phone, as required.  Thanks to friends pitching in, I’ve got a bed for him and toiletries and some books and a few clothes that won’t make him stand out as an ex con.  I am so excited.  So happy.  We’ll post a report on how it went, with photos, next time.]

Froggie Went a Courtin’

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VINCE

I just came back from a lawn mowing where I took the life of an innocent frog.  It was a cold-blooded murder in the most literal sense.  Wait.  Are frogs cold blooded?  Hmm.  I may be wrong but it sounded funny in my head.

I don’t like to kill things, so I felt bad for a few minutes.  I didn’t do it on purpose, but when his (her?) severed head was staring into my eyes, I could still see life and I’ve been thinking about it ever since.  Now that I’ve written about it, I can let it go.

I once killed a deer, for meat, and I once killed a deer with a Pontiac Sunfire.  Oh, and some squirrels, which I also ate.

—

After months of no formal discipline, I got an intervention today.  That is my sixth in five months, not bad.  The guy with the most discipline in my squad has 21 and three Learning Experiences (LEs).

An intervention is basically a military gig, not a rehab intervention like you might see on TV.  Mine was for not sleeping under one of my two sheets.  It’s very petty.  If I do it two more times which I won’t, I will get an LE.

—

I redeemed myself today for killing the frog.  I saw him/her just in time while I was pushing the Frog Killer 2000 over the grass, and helped him along into the garden.  Oh, yea, there were two of them.  So if I ever kill another frog, I’m even.

—

We’ve been working lately in CD on the “ripple effect” of our crimes.  Well, most of us have.  The guy who shot at somebody several times but missed still claims his offense has no victim.

I never denied that selling drugs hurt society, people’s lives, families, and of course the children.  I’m sure the money given to me for meth could have been better spent on food, clothing, and shelter.

My criminality has affected my family as well.  I didn’t directly try to bring harm to them, other than stealing some money from My Mom years ago, and borrowing money more recently without, so far, paying it back.  But I see my Mother, now in her 50s, still beautiful, energetic, kind, and unbelievably patient, without a husband, and I wonder if I am indirectly or directly responsible.  Is that where the shame took hold?  Am I such a black sheep that she didn’t even bother?

She’s had boyfriends over the years but they didn’t stick.  I see myself in the same boat.  37 with no wife and kids, no girlfriend waiting for me out there.  Maybe together, we emit a powerful toxic odor that that repels potential mates.  Hmm…I hope not.

The point is, even if I am not responsible for her mating habits, I am seeing that my choices affect more than just me.  And it can ripple a long way out.  I’m not just staying clean for me, I’m doing it for the whole pond.

[ANNE: My heart sank when I read this.  Vince is in no way responsible for me being one of the 7% of American women my age who have never married.  Take out the lesbian women who couldn’t marry, and I am part of a really small club.  I always wanted to get married.  I assumed I would.  I wrote a blog post about dating years ago that demonstrates the effort I put into finding a mate.

Like a lot of things, it’s complicated.  I wasted my 20s and 30s—the years when most people marry—on Kermit and other alcoholics, abusers, and just plain jerks.  Then I took a break from dating to figure out how to stop doing that.  Then came Vince’s lost year, when I was too distraught to think of anything else.  Then, the older you are, the harder it is to meet people.  So it was a combo of bad choices, bad timing, bad luck and yes, Vince was a factor but far from the only one.  Being single is far from the worst fate, so now I claim my spinsterhood as if it was my plan all along.]

An Exception to the Rule

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VINCE

I remember working at the Kemps Ice Cream plant in Rochester for roughly a year.  Possibly significantly more or less, I have no idea.

I worked in the wrapper room.  Seven lines of different flavors, brands, and styles would come through a Plexiglas wall from the production line and into one of the various machines to be individually wrapped, then bundled in four or six packs, then shrink-wrapped together before going into the deep freeze for several hours.

I worked a machine called an Amerio.  Sort of a recycling freezer.  31 levels high, the ice cream would be pushed in from the front and out the back came the now frozen bricks onto a conveyer belt that flowed down to a separate room for wrapping.

I worked with a guy I’ll call Bill.  Often we worked 12 hour shifts in the summer time.  We got to know each other pretty well.  We joked around a lot, had some serious conversations, and once we even went out for a beer (just after I had started drinking again after five years sober).

Very shortly after that I lost my job and never saw or talked to him again.

Years later, while looking at the Olmsted County Sherriff’s Office In Custody roster online, looking for anybody I knew in the meth world, I saw his name.  Just below his name was a charge that even criminals despise.

It turns out Bill had a fairly long standing relationship with a 12 year old girl.  The police had letters he had written to her, and her to him, describing, in too much detail, their love.

I sit here now and am a little upset that I ever spoke to him, not that I knew anything about it.  I would like to write a lot more about it but I can’t.  I will someday, when my mail won’t be read before it’s sent out.

—

I had a one-on-one with my CD counselor just a moment ago.  We talked for a half hour about my worries and wants and my thoughts about employment upon release.  His advice, go out and live life.  He said he had full confidence that I would be good at being sober, but he wanted me to go out and be a good person.

Then he threw me a curve-ball.  He thought I could make a great CD counselor within five years, by which time I would have gotten my Bachelor’s in Social Work and then on to a LADC or something like that.  I tend to daydream and space out a lot even if they are really important.  But he made me feel like I was really capable of doing something with my life, even if it takes a while.  So, I have that going for me.

—

Today our squad had our re-entries.  What’s that?  Where we go into a room and one by one we talk to our CD counselor and case manager.  It’s really scary for the people that have not been doing any hard work.  All my counselor said to my caseworker was, “He’s doing exceptional work, and he facilitates the NA meeting on Friday nights.  No worries.”  She smiled (nobody has seen her smile) and told me I was also the exception to the rule on her end.  I have been approved to move to St. Paul upon my release!  No more worries.  I was the only one in my squad to be approved so far.

[ANNE: I felt nervous when I read that last paragraph.  I say I’m not superstitious but I am a Midwesterner, and we have superstitions that go like this: 1) “Never saying anything good about yourself because you’ll sound like a braggart, and everyone will look askance at you but not say anything” or 2) “Never say anything optimistic because that will immediately bring back luck down on you.”  Or was it that I’ve known a lot of addicts and alcoholics, and they tend to be Janus faced in many ways—in this case grandiose today and ripping themselves to shreds the next?  In know!—I think I’ll just be proud of how well he’s doing.]

LeCordon Blue

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ANNE

My last post looked at the reasons that kids born into poor or blue collar families are highly have a hard time negotiating the college admissions process.  Low expectations, parents who know nothing about the admissions system, day care instead of preschool, and a lack of exposure to enriching opportunities like music lessons or travel.

Everyone’s situation is different, but I have to write at least one more post about what happens when kids from poor families do aspire to attend college.  It should be easy.  If they start at a community college for their first two years, then finish at a public university.  Pell Grants should cover their cost of attendance.  Students can take up to six years to complete their degree, which allows them time to work, which covers their rent and other living expenses.  Even private colleges can be a good deal for lower income kids, if they have good grades, because private colleges offer much more financial aid than public institutions.  They should have to borrow minimal, if any, in student loans.

But what can happen is that low income kids get all excited about for-profit colleges that are national chains and advertise heavily on TV, the radio, and the web.  These are places like LeCordon Bleu School of Culinary Arts, where Vince wanted to go when he was 16 and had dropped out of high school.  He stopped in to get information and they pounced, completing all the paperwork for him to take out student loans to cover the $40,000 tuition.

That’s $40,000 per year, for a two-year program.  That’s how for-profit schools make their shareholders very, very happy.  LeCordon Bleu has a graduation rate that’s better than Bemidji State University, but at 48% that still means 52% of students drop out under the worst possible circumstances: no degree, which means no prospects for a decent job, and on the hook for tens of thousands of dollars of student loans.  That’s U.S. Government money–aka tax dollars–going to subsidize for-profit colleges.  It makes me sick.  Back then I knew very little about the whole college aid picture but I understood that $40,000 was a ridiculous amount to pay to get a degree as a pastry chef.  I refused to sign the forms for Vince and he was furious, but maybe some day he’ll thank me.

Recently Vince asked me to send him information about culinary schools.  He was interested in earning a degree in the work he’s been doing for 20 years.  I checked out our local community and technical college and their tuition for a full-time student was a little over $3,000 per year.

But unsophisticated students can get into trouble even at community colleges.

Fast forward.  Vince has completed four months of treatment at Hazelden and a year living in a Hazelden-sanctioned halfway house in West Palm Beach, Florida.  He has settled in Rochester, Minnesota and is working at Spencer Gifts.  He decides to pursue a degree at Rochester Community and Technical College.

I was working at the job I mentioned in my last post–the college enrollment consulting firm–and offered to help Vince figure out the financial aid picture.  He seemed to think this was intrusive and unnecessary.

To make a long story short, he took out over $30,000 in student loans and dropped out a few credits shy of earning his associate degree.  What was going on in that financial aid office?  Wasn’t anyone tracking that no student needed that much in federal loans to attend a college that cost $3,000 a year?  Wasn’t there an underwriter to flag that this was a high-risk borrower?

He subsequently defaulted on those loans.  The penalties and interest have piled up astronomically.  Unlike other debt that can be discharged in bankruptcy, student loans are inescapable.   As Vince would say, “Ugh.”

It probably feels overwhelming to him; not what he needs as he is about to be released to make a fresh start.

Boring but Important

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ANNE

This blog touches on a lot of issues related to imprisonment, like addiction, drug laws, mental illness, and intergenerational poverty.  One thing I’ve been meaning to address is class, and historically, a four-year college degree has been the way for Americans to propel themselves from the “working class” to the middle class and beyond.

We talk a lot about race in this country, but we like to think we’re a classless society because we don’t have a monarchy.  We also like to believe that in America, anyone can overcome poverty to become a millionaire if they just work hard enough.  It’s exactly because of this myth, I think, that our class divide is so hard to overcome, because we don’t acknowledge that it exists or that the deck is stacked against many people.

—

I learned a lot about college financial aid and admissions by working at a consulting firm that specialized in enrollment management for private colleges.  What we did was this: our clients would send us the data on their freshman applicants, we would analyze it, then tell them which applicants to accept and how much money to offer them to come.  These financial “awards” were really mostly just discounts to entice desirable students to come to a particular college.

When we analyzed the data—no matter whether it was Occidental College in L.A. or Loyola University in Chicago or St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota—there was one thing that students with the highest grades and test scores had in common.  Race?  No. High school attended?  No.  These things were factors but really it all boiled down to parental income.

Colleges often offered discounts to the richest families.  They call these awards things like “Presidential Scholarships” in hopes of flattering parents and beating their competitors.

Why do kids from high-income families do so well?  It’s not rocket science.  They have grown up in safe, lead-free homes with toys and books.  They went to preschool and well-resourced elementary schools.  Their parents attended every parent-teacher conference and made sure they did their homework.  They went to summer camps in the Adirondacks where they were on a lacrosse team, were immersed in French, or learned to play the marimba.  Colleges love these well-rounded students.

Wealthy families can also afford SAT/ACT prep classes.  They can afford to fly/drive to campus visits to the remote, pastoral towns where the most exclusive colleges are located.  They can hire tutors and college admission coaches.  These coaches do a brisk business in helping kids write the perfect application essay and advising parents on which colleges will give the biggest discounts.

But sometimes I think the biggest factor in driving kids toward academic success is that wealthy parents have expectations of them.

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I don’t recall anyone having expectations of me, or talking to me about college when I was 17.  They may have, but I was so busy partying that I may not remember.  Our neighborhood was blue collar—every mom was a housewife and every husband was a car mechanic, a roofer, or worked in a can factory.  The only reason I even knew what a college was, was because there was a Catholic college nearby and my aunt had married a professor—the one “white collar” guy on the block.

Yet I knew I didn’t want to work in a can factory or be a housewife, and that college was my ticket out.  I applied to one college—Bemidji State University.  Bemidji State is in an extremely poor part of northern Minnesota near the White Earth Indian reservation.  It has a 90% acceptance rate and a 17% graduation rate (compared with around 7% and 99% for Harvard).  All I knew was that it sounded as far away from home as anything I could imagine.

By the time I got my acceptance letter, I was pregnant with Vince.  I wrote “deceased” on the envelope and threw it back in the mail.

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I sometimes wonder what trajectory my life would have taken if I’d had some guidance about college, but on the whole I’ve made the best of it and have had a great life.