Spent some time with a friend today whom I first befriended when our children were less than a year old. Her children are now both in a boarding school that teaches self-discipline, study skills, and instills self-esteem and self-confidence.
Tutition per child is $35,000 per year.
We are in a chic Soho restaurant in the late afternoon as we have the following conversation:
Friend: You have no idea what the last year was like. (16 year old Daughter) spent the past seven months smoking pot 3 times a way. One night she called and said she was in Red Hook–Red Hook!–with a bunch of 21-year old guys and was going to take the bus home–of course, I ran out and got her. (She goes on to describe many other harrowing episodes with both kids, culminating with the decision to put one, and then the other into this special school.)
“So, Susan, tell me, how’s your family? How’s your son?”
I then describe the night before the flight to Oakland when Zack went AWOL for 12 hours and and made us nuts, ending up with, “But fortunately, that was fairly unusual.”
Friend stares at me, eyes wide, hands gripping the table edge. “Don’t you get it, what you’re describing was every day of my life for more than a year!”