Maggie's Farm

Growing up, we moved 6 or 7 times in 10 years and each new place the entire sets of the Rake's Progress and Marriage a la Mode engravings were hung up in the new dining room. With a certified lunatic for a mother, we kids examined the pictures with survivors' fascination... Upon vising my mother in one bin when she was ill, I exclaimed with 8 year old tact "Well, it's tidier than Bedlam!" Our image of marriage was indelibly formed staring at those engravings as we pushed hated liver or spinach around at family dinner. The other engraving that permanently tainted our attitude was "The Distrest Poet" trying to write with wailing brat and distressed wifey distracting him...Aspiring in foolish youth to write, I vowed never to marry!

Love that Officer Krupke song, and agree. Most people with mental problems would settle down considerably with honest work that gave them at least a small measure of satisfaction as well as a paycheck. Not having a job can literally drive a person nuts, especially a man. The humiliation, the financial worries, the wife losing romantic interest in a man who cannot provide, kids despising a poor role model, having no work companions, having to external structure forcing him to get up, shave, open the mail and get to meetings on time, etc.

As for the stuff on conservatives being mentally ill, its all hooey. There are equal numbers of wackos in both camps. The lefties tend to be less religious so seek out shrinks more readily than conservatives, many of whom (gasp) see their problems as spiritual and moral and consult their minister first for guidance. Ive been liberal and I'm conservative now, and I'd say that conservatives tend to have a problem with underanalyzing themselves and lefties with overanalyzing. But that's just my limited experience....

Facing sending kids to college, I am enraged that my smart kids will likely get no scholarship money, despite us being strapped, while kids from "disadvantaged" backgrounds who belong to different groups and get worse grades, will get preferential admissions and scholarships. Disheartening. And this is in the name of social justice?! It's an insane policy...

Ain't it the truth! I may have 3 in at once for 2 years if I can't persuade one or more of em to enter the trades or go off and find themselves off the family payroll. The thing is, we are living paycheck to paycheck right now, so hard to see how to find the moula. Husband doesn't work and won't mortgage his property, I own nothing and my work pays awfully. Guess I'll end up getting second and third jobs while His Nibs sits idle...

The gloomy perspective I have is that their father and I had the absolute best education money and spectacular academic scores could get, and we both turned out total screw-ups, chronically unemployed and under-employed respectively, miserable human beings. Book smart, life stupid. The kids seem a distinct improvement on us, thank God, and will doubtless have happier, more productive lives going to non-Ivy schools and settling for less vainglorious ambitions. Although it breaks my heart when I overhear the kids seriously discussing amongst themselves the same resolve I made at their age(growing up in an insane household) the advisability of never marrying and having children, so as to halt the spread of our family's tainted genes. We're all mad as hatters. I used to love the Arsenic and Old Lace ending where Cary Grant happily exclaims "I'm not a Brewster after all, I'm the son of a sea cook?" Am sure my children would be as happy to discover they were adopted (and therefore not doomed) as I used to hope I was...

"Okay mom, I have Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Dartmouth, Georgetown, University of Chicago, Columbia, Williams, Bowdoin, Reed on my list so far. Which of them are reach, safe and in between...."

Now, young lady, cut to the chase, let's look at the tuition and meritocratic scholarships...let's seee, 128th Red Indian, what's that good for?...

Honestly, don't know what to advise her. Must give my undivided attention to her...

It's way high already, and the grades are all A and A+, and even some extracurriculars. The main problem is two parents who are failures and not rich (so not good for providing a new library) or interesting ethnic. I argue to as yet unconvinced ears about service academies (she is brave, strong, patriotic, clean-cut, devout). I worry that the same thing will happen as when we were applying to private schools for all of them many years ago and got turned down by all. All were the smartest in their nursery schools, cute, sweet, etc. but we parents doomed them by not looking like good fundraising prospects, having no connections, and being too quirkily intellectual. We joke that we are like Morticia and Whatshisface Addams trying to get their kids into school....AAAARGH If it would help, I'd bleach my hair blonde and get skinny and gush a lot, but hubby is prouder and less willing to sell his soul...

Nah...I'd rather she got into Annapolis than Moscow on the Charles! Good night. I will take my insane patriotism and old fashioned ideas to bed.