I Talked to the Boy/Man. This is what I said.

I wanted to tell you about a conversation I had with my 17-year-old yesterday afternoon. Report cards came home and he had an A, 2 B’s, 2 C’s. The C’s were in classes he should be ace-ing. Science and math. He’s supposed to be a genius with those subjects.

I read the report card, gave it to him and went about my work. I stopped lecturing him about his grades more than a year ago. I’ve given him advice, I’ve yelled at him, I’ve asked him questions. I take him to a psychologist, I get him to work with teachers after school, I’ve gotten him ADD meds. I don’t have anything else in my arsenal as a parent.

About an hour later I came into the office and said, “I’d like to just mention something. By way of observation. I’m not going to yell, I’m not going to beg, I’m not going to do anything but tell you what I think.”

“I think you get these kinds of grades because you don’t study.” He looked at me warily. Like he was expecting me to lecture him on that. I plowed on.

“I didn’t get C’s when I was in school. But I also didn’t get the A’s I should have. I was a solid B student. I did all my homework, even did a little extra-credit. But I never sat down and studied. I never reviewed the materials from the class. I didn’t spend time studying for tests. I thought it was boring and pointless. Every time I would sit down to review the stuff, I’d be saying to myself, ‘I know this, yeah yeah yeah.’

I wanted to be a veterinarian. From the time I was 7 I did. In 1978 when I graduated from high school, I was accepted to a very good, expensive private undergraduate school that had a pre-vet program. There were about 15 Vet schools around the country, and people needed 4.0 GPAs to even apply. That meant that, after going 4 years to this undergrad program, I would have to emerge with a perfect A average to even be invited to complete an application. I didn’t know if I could make those grades.

So I decided to try a one-year Bible program at a Bible college. I wanted to see if I could do college-level work and get A’s.

But I didn’t study any more in college than I had in high school. By the middle of the first semester I realized that I didn’t WANT to compete that much. I didn’t WANT to spend all my free time reviewing materials and staying up all night studying. I was happy with B’s. So I changed my major to History and decided to drop the competitive Vet School idea.”

So Nate was looking at me while I was talking and not saying anything. But I think he was listening pretty well.

I told him that he would have to decide what he was going to do. If he really wants to go into a competitive thing like medical school, he’s going to have to slog through the boring stuff. He’s going to have to memorize and study and put all his time into it. But if he just doesn’t want to do that, he will need to find something else that suits his lifestyle more. And I’m fine with either way. He just needs to figure out which way he’s going to go.

I’ve always felt like an under-achiever. I’ve always known that I had the brains to go to medical school or vet school or into science or technology. But I’ve never wanted to have it completely consume my life. I’m just not that driven about it. And because I never did any of those things, I’ve always had this nagging, “I should have done more” thing going on.

In the last couple of years, though, I’ve come to realize that my calling is different from that. To communicate with people on a personal level, and to tell others through reporting and photography what is going on…that’s a good thing to do. To be able to help my friends, make life a little easier for my family…those are good things to accomplish.

I don’t want Nate to go through half his adulthood with “I should have been this…” hanging over his head. And, while I know he will try and fail at some stuff, and learn some hard lessons, I’m hoping it won’t take him as long or cost him as much as it did me.