I was on the phone with a friend the other day. And she was telling me that her daughter had called her earlier from school. Her daughter wasn’t feeling well and she asked her mother if she thought it was a good idea to skip going to an off-site course requirement. The Mom said I think even if you do not feel well you should go anyway. But the mother wasn’t so sure her daughter planned on taking her advice. And the mother said nothing more.
Kara has been talking about studying abroad. She had it all planned out. After doing her research she decided to apply to the business program in Rome. It had the perfect combination of management courses and art history. But for whatever reason the school assigned her a study abroad program in Milan. The program in Milan paled to what she had an opportunity to study in Rome---and it also paled to what she would have studied had she remained at Emory.
If I have learned anything from being a mother it is this: It is important to non diece nien---Italian for say nothing. And this is especially true with Kara. I cannot tell that child anything. Kara has always had her own mind. She is not receptive to unsolicited advice. She snaps like a terrier. She likes to think things through for herself. Which is why tippy-toeing around what to say and what not say necessitates subtlety—the words must be innocuous. I need to be Switzerland-esque.
Because my feeling on the topic is this: Academics should trump immersing oneself in another’s culture. It's the point of paying tuition. If she wants to immerse herself in another’s culture she can take a Perillo tour. And as my friend Steve once said how long am I supposed to finance my child’s dreams? But I couldn’t say that. I had to present facts within the confines of neutrality and hope that Kara would arrive at a sound conclusion all by herself. And for the last two weeks I have been sitting on my hands and keeping my mouth shut. It has been torturous. But one thing I knew for sure, Kara would not make a flippant decision. Whatever conclusion she came to, I would support--even if I did not agree.
And yesterday I got her final word. She is not going abroad. Going to Milan will not serve her well—the courses are not interesting enough and key summer internships might be missed. And I breathed a sigh of relief. She had indeed made a good decision based on all the right reasons. I was proud.
And then she said Oh but Emory is offering a 10 day 4 credit Entrepreneur course that I want to take at the end of the spring semester...It’s in Nicaragua. My stomach did flips. I thought Nicaragua? Isn’t Nicaragua the place where they grow cocaine and Americans are kidnapped? Again I non diece nien. Instead I responded with Great! Apply for the program and we will take it from there.
Because that is the corollary to the non diece nien: wait and see how things pan out. Sometimes situations are self-correcting. A mother’s input is not necessary. I’ll worry about Nicaragua if and only if Nicaragua becomes a tangible option. There is no sense discussing it right now—it might never come to pass.
And I have not checked back but I’ll bet my friend’s daughter fulfilled her off-site course requirement despite the fact that she did not feel well. And if she did, my friend heard all about her daughter’s misery. Because that is the corollary to the wait and see how things pan out corollary: children whine in the aftermath. But that is to be expected. Mothers then deal with whining in their own way—they “wine” right back--with Chardonnay or Pinot Grigio.
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