Somebody Stop Me!

I have become one of those parents. Those overbearing parents who are obsessed with their child's college search. Maybe it's because I didn't get to go away to college myself, but I spend many of my waking hours looking for appropriate colleges for Sio to apply to, colleges that I think are cool, colleges that cost less than $40,000 per year, colleges in places I think Sio would like to live, even if she tells me "not so much".

I want to spend every weekend going on tours of colleges. I have signed up at College Confidential, sharing my daughter's "stats" other other, similarly obsessed parents, asking if they think she will get some merit aid, or wondering if she should re-take the SATs. (She probably could do better, but she won't retake them, and I understand, the very idea of a fill-in the bubble test that takes 4 hours...seems a little like hell.)

Every time I open my mouth now, she sucks in a little air, just knowing that I am about to suggest another college, or wonder if the bio department at College X is really that much better than the bio department at College Y, or share with her what some anonymous person wrote about the food at College Z, or tell her how active Greek life is at College W. And then the eye-rolling begins, and the girl has some serious peepers to roll around at her overbearing mother.

I don't know how I became this person, a person I've never been before. But here I am, and I need to stop. Or at least learn to not discuss all my research with Sio.