When School is Out, there is Always Oatmeal

I mentioned anxiety around my high-schooler’s tests last week, and I am sorry to report that symptoms have not improved. The fact that he is wrapping up his junior year and that we are now officially staring at college application season this Fall, certainly does not help. As relaxed as I thought I was around grades and college throughout this school year, it turns out I was harboring some subterranean anguish that decided to rear its ugly head a few weeks ago. It all started with the French section of the baccalaureate, which my son had to take this week. Is it because I am a French teacher, raised by two French school teachers? That probably doesn’t help. But whatever the reason, I am finding myself paralyzed with crippling anxiety around my son’s future these days. The American college admissions process seems so daunting, I am not sure I am cut out for it. For an organization-adverse person like me, it could hardly be more discouraging. In France you submit your grades onto a platform, and that is it. There might be a short essay required by some schools, but I even doubt that. Whatever the process, it is wrapped up within a couple of weeks in March of Senior year, and nothing else is required from students or families. No expensive and time-consuming college visits that seem to swallow the entire Junior year (hello, family vacations? You are such a distant memory). No SATs or ACTs, no letters of recommendations, no long hours and days fretting over a million different essays while moms, I assume, down several glasses of gin, hidden in the kitchen.

Also, you absolutely do not need to worry about your teenager’s summers. They can relax on the beach and eat ice cream all day from late June through early September, and nobody will think more of it. In fact, doing anything else would be seen as strange. Schools require a sophomore year internship, but they help you find it. And it happens during the school year. In the summer, your child is supposed to be summering, and so are you. Which means that a/you can actually enjoy your time off, and b/you can also enjoy your school year as you do not need to scramble to find a meaningful activity for your teen in the summer. The fewer job or camp applications, the better, I say. This is the motto I live by, at least as a parent. At least it was the motto I used to live by, as I now find myself worrying about EVERY SINGLE THING IN MY TEENAGER’S LIFE. How much he studies, how much he does for the U.S. curriculum, the French curriculum, how meaningful his summer experiences will be from an application standpoint, what makes sense in his life and what he is about, what he will be able to write about in his essays this Fall. As experience has taught me before, and teaches me regularly now that I am back, I don’t think I was wired to be an American mom.

Not wired to be on an American school schedule, either. Because excuse me, but being done with classes on May 27 when all high schools in France close at the end of June, does not seem fair, or justified. I knew I should have been prepared, but I really wasn’t. Even though the damned internship started the next day. For a minute I mentally thanked the internship for its mere existence. Because at least, my boy would be busy and out of the house until 2 pm every day. What I hadn’t thought about, however, was the morning routine, or absence thereof, before the internship. So, there I was two days ago, realizing, at 8:30 am, that my son was still home, and seemingly asleep, when he should have been on the subway to Harlem already. Because you see, on school days, he needs to leave by 7:30 am at the latest, which seemed inhumane at first, after living twenty minutes from school in Paris for two years. But I confess that after a few weeks of my house being empty at 7:20 am, I cherished that newfound solo time in the morning, before the BBC World Service even starts at 9 am on WNYC. So, when it stopped abruptly this week, it took me a minute to get my bearings. On his first day of work, I had to shake my son out of bed, only to be yelled at because it turned out he didn’t need to be in the office until 9:30 am that day. Unless it was 10 am, because he suddenly remembered something about an onboarding process taking place all the way downtown. Which he only told me sheepishly after yelling that no, he did not remember he was supposed to prepare a formal outfit with a clean shirt the night before. But the shirt needed to be ironed, so his tone magically softened after a few minutes of silence from his room. And softened again when it was not clear where the boy was supposed to go and it was already 9:10 am. Teenagers, I tell you. It seemed like my son was on track and disciplined all year, until school stopped and seemingly all hell broke loose. He finally left saying he would figure it out, which he did. I knew from a series of frantic dings during the Zoom yoga class I foolishly thought would be relaxing after that morning exchange. Then there was a second series of dings when he showed up at onboarding and realized he didn’t have his ID. Nor did he have the paperwork he needed from his school. Meanwhile it was almost time for Savasana, and my day was off to an ominous start.

How come it’s become so hard to just talk to my son? He is so tall now, I am finding it hard to even feel the parental authority I once exercised. Tell me how to feel respected and powerful when you would need a stepladder to look your offspring in the eye. My strategy has been silence, and retreat, because I am also a terribly conflict-averse woman. But I do see that I am trying to flee something, and that my son would need a little more from me. I am just not sure what it is at this point and find it hard to communicate anything else than my anxiety these days. So here we are, with a sixteen-year-old on a part-time schedule for the next four weeks, and a tired mom ready to fly out to Mexico and sip margaritas for a month. The end of the school year has this way of sneaking up on you, when you are at your most tired and really do not want to spend your days attending school shows and dance recitals and throwing birthday parties on top of everything (why, oh why do we have three summer birthdays in the family?). At least this year, we are not moving across the Atlantic, is what I tell myself. We did that last year, and three years ago, and it did not sit well with me. Last year at this time, I was a dysfunctional, crying, inefficient mess. This year might not be so different but at least I’m not crying 24/7. Although it might come, who knows. After all we are still in May, and there are another three weeks of school for my younger children. Which seems luxurious compared with a May 27 end-of-the-calendar. But quite scandalous when I think back on the July 5th last day of last year. No day camps to plan, no extra money spent. What a luxury that was, and I didn’t know it. But I’m not moving, I’m not moving this year. This will need to be my mantra over the next few weeks, when I deal with my grouchy teenager every morning at breakfast and need to iron long-sleeve shirts.

What I have found is that my Purely Elizabeth vanilla oatmeal, does help. This is not advertising. I have way too few readers for this. It’s just a simple fact, that when the house is finally empty, I can turn on the radio and put my pretty pink ice cream cup in the microwave with my oatmeal and half a cup of oat milk. Then I can stir the oatmeal and let it stand for a few minutes while I grab some almond butter and a few raspberries, sometimes a sliced banana if there is one lying around. I will sit and wait for my cup to cool down while I drink my coffee and listen to the latest awful U.S. or international news. The world might be crumbling, and my son might soon be leaving the house. He may, or may not, end up exactly where he wants to be. I may, or may not, hold it together next Fall while we support him in his journey out of our lives. But at least for now, I have my oatmeal, and for a few minutes every morning, everything feels easy, and where it should be.