Mary Eberstadt makes the following point:
No, the same public that devoured Wolfe's other novels resisted Charlotte for another reason: because middle-aged readers, many of them parents, found the book's truth-telling about what their daughters and sons on campus are really up to simply unbearable. They're not alone. “Every Saturday night,” confided a friend whose daughter was a freshman last year, “I'd think of her and worry about what she might be doing at college – and then I'd purposefully put the whole thing out of my head.” She – and a few million other mothers and fathers, too.
This statement is so pertinent to parenting today. What exactly is that campus experience so many of our daughters are subjected to? Is it worth the horrendous debt and student loan burdens they will place on their future and that of their families? Will they resent that families did not at least raise a caution flag everytime they drop their children off at the daycare centers? What about the scars they will bear from the culture of death?
The lesson is stay engaged, ask questions, keep the communication open and teach our children to live in the world, leading by good example. Finding a good Newman Center is another good idea.
