Who Says Teenagers are Bums?

I read about lazy teenagers all the time. Kids who party, take drugs, disrespect their parents and the law, play video games all day, drop out of high school, and expect their parents to buy them all the clothes, gas, and fast food they want. I, however, have had a very different experience. I currently have two teenagers and yes, they occasionally would rather watch t.v. than, say, scrub floors. Most of the time they are very hard working in the areas that matter most. Take Jana for instance. This is a picture of Jana taken this morning. She has the day off from school and she is very sick. The snuffly-nose-coughing-body-aches-headache kind of sick. But what is she doing today when she could be sleeping or curled up on the couch watching mindless sitcoms? She's studying for her AP US History exam. The exam is in a week and she has been studying nothing but US history for weeks now (in fact, this morning she told me she was going to "throw up US history facts") and she could probably take part of the day off, but she's not. It is important to her to pass this test and get college credit. She works hard in all her classes in addition to being in the a cappella choir, on the track team, and president of her church class. I'm impressed and sometimes exhausted watching her.

Not that my kids are perfect, they're not. And not that they are the only ones who work hard, they have lots of friends who are amazing also. We need to hear more stories about these kinds of kids. Because in my experience, teenagers are amazing.

Jill

The beginning of the end

Tomorrow I start my last term of college. Well, actually it is my last term of undergraduate work. In March I will graduate from Portland State University with a Bachelor of Arts in English. In June I will, hopefully, start a Master of Fine Arts program at Pacific University. So while this isn't the end, it still feels like a milestone.
I went back to school at the age of 39 with four kids. When I started I met with an advisor who told me I "only" had 125 credits left! I figured I would be stretching myself to take 12 credits a term and when I did the math that meant that I had. . . . . a long time 'til I would graduate. I remember calling my husband on my cell phone from campus after that meeting and crying, "I can't do this, it is so long! I'll be 41 when I graduate!" He asked me how old I would be in two years if I didn't go back to school and I admitted that I'd still be 41. He said, "Do you want to be 41 with a degree or 41 without?" Pretty smart guy. The really amazing thing is that I did it! I made it through those 125 credits (except for the 12 I'm taking this term), and I'm actually going to graduate from college.
Graduating from college was one of those things I was going to accomplish "someday" and now it is actually here. It has not been easy. My kids were 14, 12, 9 and 3 when I started and it took a lot of juggling to make it work. I couldn't have done it without a terrifically supportive husband and kids who were willing to be independent. The best time was last year when there were five family members in five different schools (preschool, elementary school, middle school, high school and college). I told my husband he needed to go get his Masters and then we'd have six in six. His response was "Honey, one of us needs to be sane and I nominate me."
He's been amazingly sane and often was truly the only one of us who was!!
So, tomorrow is the beginning of the end. What a journey it has been.