My 30th high school reunion will take place next summer and, aside from the panic about what I will wear and how tragically I may or may not have aged, I already know what to expect. I’ve been to two other reunions of my high school class as well as four of my husband’s. His class has them every five years and such a spacing is rather like watching a time-lapsed photograph of people who are gradually getting older, but in ways that aren’t always obvious until you compare their THEN and NOW faces. That is, if you don’t count the guy who wrote on his “What I’ve Been Up To” profile that he had been recently “abducted by Jesus”.

In the years since graduation, some people will have done extraordinary things with their time and others will have done nothing of the sort. Some will be a walking advertisement for aging gracefully and others will have let themselves go completely. Most will have have broadened their horizons with college degrees and the intellectual, emotional and experiential moments that those accomplishments bring will have defined their careers and their lives in a way that will distinguish them from the others. Despite all of that, some will be happy and fulfilled and some will be miserable or simply underwhelmed with life and what it has to offer.

It sometimes takes 20 or so years before time, the great equalizer, begins to bring together the worlds of the socials, jocks, freaks, intellectuals, spazmoids and wallflowers together in one big room before you attain the one gift you’ve needed your entire life--perspective. And that’s what my husband and I try –and fail–to bring to our sons: PERSPECTIVE. We attempt to share with them the long view of life…as seen from the vantage point of thirty years down the road. Guess what I found out? My life map is an old map that is only useful for one person. Me.

My past reality isn’t any more of a litmus for my kids’ lives than my parents’ reality was a pattern for me, and not because I’m a female and my sons are…well…NOT. It’s because things change. The culture changes. If you don’t stay on top of it, you won’t be able to walk around in anyone else’s shoes long enough to give them a crumb of advice. Sure, some things don’t change. Hard work is still a good idea and compassion and ethics are some of the best tools with which to arm yourself. Do unto others, finish your homework, study hard…yadda, yadda, yadda. Those are true now and have always been so.

None of that tells me how to advise my kids when it comes to putting high school into perspective after they come home from a particularly brutal day. It’s tempting to just tell them that, in the long run, high school is really nothing. It’s the equivalent a bunch of emotional embryos sharing the same air space for four years. Sure, you go back for reunions and everyone cracks a cold one in honor of nostalgia. You retell the old stories for the laughs they bring and you experience that temporary rush of familiarity and camaraderie, but it’s far from the end of the story. If you’re lucky, you get to redefine yourself again and again over the years…despite the fact that you didn’t attend your own prom nor a single dance your entire four years of high school. See? I did it and I’m not bitter. Not one bit…

Yet, how do you share this tidbit of homespun philosophy with your kids without completely invalidating the good experiences they’re having at this particular moment in time? I want to lavish praise on my kids’ accomplishments, most of which are far beyond anything I ever did during my first 18 years of living and such praise infers that these particular honors that have been bestowed upon them MEAN EVERYTHING. Still, my boys struggle sometimes and I (we) want to help them. How does one encourage kids to embrace their current place in life and to reach for the stars and then, when they fall short (socially or academically), to put it all into a ‘big picture’ perspective where they begin to realize that this era is just one in a series of eras? If perspective teaches us that high school cliques can’t rule the rest of our lives and being a wallflower who was bad in math doesn’t necessarily determine what happens to us after that, what’s the point of trying in that moment? Or even caring? Why not just give up and wait for college and the real life to start? How can something be the “best time of your life” ( I truly challenge that statement) and “the lowest level of misery” (Now you’re thinking!)…all at the same time?

How do you maximize a kid’s triumphs without blowing the whole thing out of proportion or philosophize their failures without making them feel that the experiences between one’s freshman and senior years are worthless? In other words, there has to be a way to encourage your kid to make their adolescent years count for something and then use the same voice to downplay the outcome when it’s less than satisfactory…at least until they can pick their self-esteem out of the dust and try again.

Oh, wait. Did you think I had the answer to this question? Not on your life. I’m still trying to figure it out for myself. Besides, I’ve got that reunion coming up and I’ve got to develop a “game face” that will allow me to function that night whilst pretending not to care. Operators are standing by to take your calls and advice.

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