Tag: Barnard

Your Mom’s Guide to the Hippie(ish) Colleges of the Northeast — Part 2 (Day 8)

Today was a momentous day because it marked the likely end of my part of our college tours.  Which is fine because I’m exhausted.

We had a lazy morning before we hopped on the train uptown for Barnard College, the women’s college of Columbia University.  I liked it.  Boo did not.  Why you ask?  Because while they allow trans women to enroll, they do not allow non-binary gendered people to enroll.  Only people who consistently identify as women can enroll.  That was the reason Boo didn’t like Barnard.  Totally not kidding.

I had one of those “kids these days” moments, and we ended up irritated with each other.  I swear that we hardly ever quarrel but when we do, it’s usually about gender identity issues.  Not her gender identity (she’s totally cis-gendered), but the gender identities of other people.  I often wonder what other families quarrel about.  I’d be willing to bet that very few other families have had a major blowout over pronoun usage like we have.  Seriously, our biggest argument in the last year or two was over pronouns. #firstworldarguments

We managed to reach enough detente that we stopped by the TKTS booth in Times Square for theater tickets. Then we headed back to the apartment for a short rest before we went out for Japanese food and headed to the theater to see “The Color Purple.”  It was absolutely brilliant.  I don’t know if I’ve ever been to a show before that was literally stopped mid show because of cheering from the audience.  By the end I was crying so hard that I was afraid I was going to start audibly ugly-sobbing.

Tomorrow is my last full day with my baby before I head for home and leave her in New York.  Sniff!  I’ll be studiously avoiding discussion of pronouns.

Next up — Day 9

Follow me on Facebook

Your Mom’s Guide to the Hippie(ish) Colleges of the Northeast — Part 2 (Prologue)

[Note: Your Mom’s Guide to the Hippie Colleges of America starts here with Part 1.]

Hello, my name is Page, and I am a Hippie College addict.

I’ve been in denial about my addiction for some time now, but I finally realized the seriousness of my problem when my definition of “Hippie College” started to include schools like Bryn Mawr and Barnard.

And even though I know I should not blame others for my problem, my addiction was fueled by my supplier, who appears in the guise of an innocent college counselor at Boo’s high school. She is, in reality, a Hippie College pusher. It was she who told Boo about some additional schools that she thought might be a good fit for Boo.

Then, Boo went and ended up doing better on her ACT’s than anyone had anticipated – which opened up a whole new world of colleges that Boo won’t get into — because no actual humans are admitted to those schools anymore. Only our alien overlords in human form are allowed to attend. Plus, Boo was heading to New York for the summer anyway to attend a vocal performance program at NYU.

So even though I now recognize that I have a Hippie College problem, I ended up with several extremely lame excuses for one last all-out Hippie College bender before I go cold turkey. During the trip, I’ll be attempting to wean myself off of Hippie Colleges with some days in Philadelphia and New York that will not include college visits.

But I don’t want to talk about that now because it makes me shake and feel nauseous. Time for a discussion of gender neutral bathrooms to make me feel better.

Next up — Day 1

Follow me on Facebook