Best
“To freely bloom – that is my definition of success.”
--- Gerry Spence
He stands sometimes, lost in thought, with wrists crossed, palms twisted toward each other, dreaming melodies. He sleeps deeply, as if hurled onto the bed from a high place, head thrown back, mouth open, arms and legs bent at odd angles, feet in the air. But in the morning he’s the first one up, taking the pulse of the day. After his shower, the hair on his head sweeps forward, as if he’s just blown in on the wind. His eyes are green, then gray, changeable as the sky. He hunches over the sports page at breakfast, devouring every scrap of baseball news along with his Rice Chex, laughing out loud at the funny parts, which may of course be funny only to him. Before a single word is spoken, he can sense the mood in a room. He embodies a silence that is quieter, deeper, than not talking. He needs fewer words than most, but more music. His fingers carry memories of sonatas, jazz riffs, Broadway melodies. He wears his shirt unbuttoned over a faded tee, his pants baggy, his shoes often half tied. When he walks out the door, he always calls good-bye, and coming home he asks, first, “How was your day?” If the dishwasher is full, he empties it.
Evenings, he sits at the piano and, from some unknowable place within, brings forth his own heartbreaking improvisation on the old Nat King Cole tune “Blame It On My Youth.” In the kitchen, I pause, a stack of dinner dishes in my hands, surprised by a sudden lump in my throat, as the house fills with sound.
As an eighth grader this boy who never asked for much asked for just one thing—to go to high school in a place where he wouldn’t get lost in the crowd. It seemed to my husband and me a fair request. He wasn’t looking for escape, but for a place to grow, a place where a shy, unusual kid, small for his age and all too easy to miss in a world of larger, louder personalities, might be seen and valued.
The public school in our suburban town was good, but exactly where he didn’t want to be. And so, we began to look around. It seemed that there were a wealth of possibilities nearby, all manner of private schools promising individual attention, small classes, care. We added up costs, calculated commuting distances, signed up for the SSAT, surprised to learn that an achievement test taken at thirteen could set a trajectory for life.
One windy autumn night, my husband and I drove from Massachusetts to New Hampshire, to visit a small alternative boarding and day school on a country road just a few miles from the house where I’d grown up. Back then, I’d known the school only by reputation, as a place for artsy kids who wanted to sit at potters’ wheels, study Shakespeare, learn the constellations. Although the campus was practically in my own back yard, I had never once set foot there; to a public school girl like me, it was the counterculture. So it was with some sense of irony that I found myself visiting for the first time thirty years later, wondering if this small, idealistic high school might be the right place for our son.
It was dark when we arrived, and there were no lights to guide us. We parked the car and wandered for a while, having no idea what any of the strange, shadowy buildings might be or where we were meant to go. There were no signs to point the way. Standing alone on this gusty, wide-open hilltop, far from town and lights and civilization, the two of us felt as if we’d come not to visit a school, but to receive instead a direct audience with the sky. A full moon lurked behind fast-moving, translucent clouds. When they parted, we could get our bearings for just a moment, make out a dirt path and take a few steps toward campus. Then, plunged in darkness again, we’d stop, disoriented and wondering what on earth had brought us here.
Eventually that night, we did find our way to the library and the informal session we’d come to attend. We were impressed by the dedication of the teachers, the love they expressed for their work, the engaged, articulate students, the cozy room. But what I remember most is an odd feeling I had while standing outside in the dark. As the moon by turns illuminated and obscured the cluster of old farm buildings that comprise High Mowing School, I assured myself that this brief exploration would end soon enough, that my husband and I would get in our car and drive home, back where we belonged — after all, we had a good life already, and all sorts of schools to choose from that would not require moving from one state to another. At the same time, some wiser part of me knew quite well that, like it or not, our journey had already begun.
I have another memory, from just a bit later in that unsettled year that seems, in retrospect, equally pivotal. The more my husband and I talked about the possibility of moving, the more we tried to convince ourselves to stay put. Life was rich and good, we told ourselves, our children were thriving and would surely be fine, our dearest friends lived next door, our dark green shingled house was the vessel into which we’d poured every memory we had of parenting, of our children’s childhoods. The best part of our lives had been played out right here—Christmases, birthdays, sing-alongs, untold numbers of baseball games, camp outs, and dinners on the back porch. Surely we could figure out high school, work out a budget, settle back into the life that was already ours, and find a way to satisfy my restless middle-aged soul, without pulling up roots and overturning our entire existence.
Our blueberry bushes were amazing that year, abundantly fruitful all summer, blazing red come fall. On an unseasonably warm late autumn afternoon, I climbed out of the car, a pile of mail in hand, and paused on the path between our overgrown flower garden and the little stand of blueberries. The leaves had not all fallen, frost had yet to claim the last of the chrysanthemums and cosmos; we were suspended in that fleeting, precious moment just before true cold. On this loveliest of days, it was easy to believe that we were already in exactly the right place, that we would be here always. The yard was bathed in deepening shades of gold and red, and the air carried the sweet scent of damp leaves, earth, fallen apple, wood smoke. Standing there in the light of early dusk, I ripped open the envelope containing my son’s SSAT scores.
In that instant, I knew two things for sure: our son was not the number on that piece of paper. And somehow, no matter what it took, we would see to it that he came of age knowing that who he is as a person is more important than how well he performs on a test. By the time I walked through the back door, something inside me had shifted for good.
Most parents do not up and move as their children enter high school. And yet, we all aspire to find for them the environments in which we think they will best thrive and grow. No matter where we fall on the financial spectrum, no matter what our circumstances, as parents we feel compelled to put our children’s needs first, doing whatever we must to ensure that they are the recipients of the best educations and experiences we can provide. For thirteen years, my husband and I had shared a common sense of purpose, a commitment to spend whatever time it took and whatever money we had in order to give our two sons the best lives possible. If there was another agenda there, an unconscious one, it went without saying: of course we also dreamed of happy, productive futures for our sons, and we would give them every advantage we could, in the hope that they would go on to live the good, satisfying lives we envisioned for them. It is human nature, after all, to want the best for our young.
The question we now had to ask ourselves was, what exactly did we mean by “the best?” Was it the life our children had always known, in a house we had never planned to leave, in an affluent suburban town where “the best” is generally assumed to mean a full load of honors classes in the high school, a varsity sport or two, and a part in the school play? For some, even for many, that might very well be the ideal. But when it came to our older son, we had long since realized that “the best” was not always the obvious; it was usually something we had to figure out for ourselves.
As the parents of two very different boys, we’d also learned early on that a good choice for one might be exactly the wrong choice for the other. A vision of what’s “best” isn’t the best at all if it doesn’t support a particular child’s growth or fit their temperament. One of the greatest challenges I’ve faced as a mother -- especially in these anxious, winner-takes-all times -- is the need to resist the urge to accept someone else’s definition of success, and to try to figure out, instead, what really is best for my own children, what unique combination of structure and freedom, nurturing and challenge, education and exploration each of them needs in order to grow and bloom.
It’s not easy. I’ve watched my sons come of age in a world in which they often feel that their worth is measured by what they have and by what they do, who they hang out with, how they dress, talk, and perform in classrooms and on athletic fields—external yardsticks that don’t even begin to reflect the inner life of soul, imagination, curiosity, reverence, and desire.
As the mother of boys with temperaments that often seem in direct opposition to one another, I sometimes feel as if I’m trying to grow a fern and a cactus in the same small pot, so different are their ways and needs and gifts. And yet, with each of my sons I find myself walking a fine and precarious line between encouraging them to strive for excellence, to work hard and do their best, and yet also allowing them the space and time to grow up at their own pace, trusting that in the end each will find his way.
Watching my own two boys respond to the world, I’m continually reminded that a real education is not just a simple transfer of information, not a competition, but a gradual, and at times unfathomable, process of awakening compassion, deepening understanding, and fostering the development of imagination, curiosity, and will. Learning well doesn’t always mean scoring high. It also means acquiring the tools necessary to take on the most challenging work of all—becoming the person you are meant to be.