02/22/2026
This February break was proof that a tour of colleges can give more of an education on the history of race in America than admission to any one of them might.
I’ve already seen one of my children off to college, but getting ready to do it a second time is no easier, and in fact it’s quite different when you factor in how different kids can be from each other. I could write a long form essay on this but for today there’s an eight hour drive into a blizzard so an insta post with one more coffee on a Carolina porch with have to do.
My daughter M in many ways is so different from me. I have thought that having three kids is like having the whole world under my roof. Well, we are not that diverse, but we do represent many differences that I might wish to repress in order to make things easier on me. Make them assimilate to me. But as an adult who brings them up in the world, I think it’s on me to accommodate and expand, to get curious about who they are and the lives I have not known myself.
So when M asked to see schools in the Southeast, some of them Catholic or military, I said yes. It’s been an ambivalent yes, but I know from my own life that if you just say no to a child, they might find their way, without you.
I could write about the or how many schools survived by selling slaves or using slave labor. Some were led by religious leaders that considered these practices acceptable, and are now making reparations out of a recognition of deep guilt. Others not so subtly continue to reference their ties to plantation owners, with a pride I find disgusting and horrific.
What I have learned about M is that she wants to belong to something. Doesn’t everyone? To trust and be held in a system that will show her how to live.
I, on the other hand, want to opt-out of most systems or at least criticize them for their faults, which sometimes far outweigh any reason one might want to be a part of them. The mountains are my preferred university most days.
In the end, there were some bright spots, places where belonging wasn’t only a sacrifice of critical thinking and moral integrity, but of growth through human connection and multiplicity.
