Not really, it’s just a line from a movie that I’m slightly obsessed with, The Graduate.

It’s where my crush on Dustin Hoffman began 😍; it’s where my appreciation for Simon & Garfunkel’s music began; it’s where my love for Anne Bancroft and her blonde chunky highlights (currently residing in my own hair) began.

The movie perfectly captures the fact that no one ever really has their life completely together – ever. You can put on appearances all day long, but when you pull back a few layers, there lies the truth.

It could be parents who look loving and supportive, but are actually overbearing and smothering. It could be a college graduate who appears as though he’s got it all figured out, when in reality, he’s almost drowning (literally and figuratively) in his backyard swimming pool. It could be a marriage that seems as though it’s perfect, but is actually loveless and causing a spouse to look elsewhere for fulfillment.

I read that the director of The Graduate, Mike Nichols, wanted to drive home the point that Bancroft’s character, Mrs. Robinson, felt she’d bargained her life away for security, and is now angry about her life choices.

Nichol’s said this and it stuck with me:

“That seems to me the great American danger we’re all in, that we’ll bargain away the experience of being alive for the appearance of it.”

Read that again.

Who are you actually living your one & only precious life for? Yourself, or the version you think everyone else wants to see?

This is life for so many:

12 years working hard at school. Make sure you spend your free time doing things that look good on college applications. Does it matter if you hate it? No! Those college applications need to be padded so you can get into a good school! Ok, phew, you made it into that good school. Another 4+ years working even harder. Make sure you spend your free time doing extra-curricular activities! Do you enjoy those activities? No? Well suck it up buttercup! Good companies like to see those extra-curricular activities on a resume. Finally! You’re out of college. Time to get that good job now – especially because you’ve got those student loans to pay off! Oh wait, you don’t like what you’re doing? Well, not many people make good money fresh out of college so you better stick with it! Oh you have no work/life balance? Well you can’t quit now because you pay rent for that beautiful apartment just like all your friends have – and don’t forget those student loans! Fast forward to married life. You’re still in the same line of work even though you hate it – the money is good and it’s scary to jump ship, especially now that you have kids to support. Oh you only see the kids after 5pm (or longer) and on the weekends? This makes you sad? Well you can’t quit now! The kids need those expensive clothes just like their friends – you don’t want them to be the odd ones out, do you? And we each need our fancy cars. We’re not going to be the only ones without the latest model of the hottest car! Public school? Are you kidding meeee??? All our friends send their kids to private school, we must do it too! Better not lose that job you hate … we wouldn’t want anything to stop us from setting our kids up for the same toxic cycle!

Granted, this scenario is a little particular, but do you not see yourself anywhere in it? I’ve figured out a very delicate balance to avoid it myself, and I’m very actively trying to guide my children wayyyy, wayyyy, awayyyy from it.

They have passions already. It’s so important to me that they realize and develop those passions in their own ways and not have me come in and stomp all over and squelch them.

I’m aware that people side-eye my way of parenting sometimes. I’m sure I’ve been poo-pooed after stating that – considering the circumstances – I don’t necessarily care if my kids go to college.

But the thing is, I know my children well, and I trust them. They’ve proven to me time and again that they know what they have to do. Of course I guide them, but I’ve honed my instincts to know when I need to push a little harder and when I need to lay off.

I also trust my gut and *knocking on wood* have made pretty good life decisions so far … if I do say so myself.

So check back with me in about 8-12 years. If your children are living their best lives on their own terms and making a decent living, and mine are wielding a giant cross in a church as a barrier between angry wedding guests so they can jump on a bus and run away with another man’s fiancé – you can then say, “I told you so”, and I will say that you were right.