August 27, 2026

Blogging is cheaper than therapy, so why not pour out some thoughts here? Ha!

I really struggle with how much to say here since my kids didn’t sign up to be the subject of my blog, but they have told me they really don’t mind if I talk about them without going too personal, of course.

I know many of you have been through this stage of parenting, are in it now, or will be, though.

We just had a big transition and that is the reason for today’s post…

If you don’t want to read much, just scroll to the end of the post, but for those who want more background…

Let’s go back a bit. I have twin boys who are a couple of weeks from turning 24. Parenting them was so fun and relatively easy until college, really. They are sweet, smart, loving, and funny – really funny. Tom and I had never laughed so hard until we had kids; I think he would agree with me. They really never got in trouble, either. I hate to say “they” with twins because they are individuals, but they were very similar in hobbies and abilities so it’s hard not to say “they”.

It became clear in high school that while both of our kids were good at science and math, they enjoyed English, Spanish, History, Great Books, Choir, and Theatre classes the most. They lost March until May of senior year, 2020 and I remember them both deciding on which college they would attend right after school shut down. That was a crazy time. By the way, I was their senior AP Spanish teacher, and their other teachers were my long-time colleagues and friends. I had a front row seat that is unique; not many parents know their high schoolers’ day as well as I got to.

High school graduation was non-existent for us.

Here is college graduation in May 2024:

Without knowing which college the other picked (such a twin thing!), they both picked a small liberal arts college here in our city and Tom and I were thrilled. The college scholarships they received made it so that it would be cheaper than our state schools, too. We were relieved because they would be close but get to live on campus and it was a global pandemic so being close seemed to make sense to us. Remember the uncertainty of this time? We didn’t know what would happen with the pandemic. We were told students would have to quarantine at an off campus site? or could be sent home. It was just all really scary.

Tom wanted to dictate what they majored in and what would be a good career path. I felt like they should study what they were passionate about and it would all work out in the end. Of course, I was also worried about a career path, but I had faith that it would work out. Even when I was in college from 1990-1994, if you majored in a humanity, you most likely wouldn’t be working in that field. Or, you would have to get a graduate degree to do so. I have friends who majored in political science, anthropology, etc. Those people have either gotten lucky in an unrelated job field or a couple are still job hopping all over the place in their 50s. I majored in Spanish, but did secondary education along with it, so I had my career path set and had no trouble finding my first teaching job just a month after graduating from college.

I was also worried about their mental health. I wanted them to be healthy, happy, and fulfilled and not only was it a hard time in our country and city and that affected this age group.

Jack ended up majoring in vocal music performance and minoring in theatre. Mason ended up majoring in philosophy and minoring in theatre. Jack taught voice and guitar lessons alongside other part-time gigs for some time but now he is a supervisor in retail and had to stop teaching because it was too much with his retail job full time hours.

Mason has held some part-time retail positions and subbed k-12. He tried his hand as a reader/talent/voice for audio books, too, and still plans to do more of that. He was doing ok but he wasn’t doing great. His favorite weekly activity was meeting with his college professor that he’s kept in touch with and discussing a particular book.

For both of them, I have spent some time worrying about how long these jobs will be sustainable. They were both able to move out with a roommate. There is no way they could live alone right now.

I’m telling you that it’s hard out there. The cost of everything has gone up so much. These 20 somethings have it harder than I did, I think.

I know that Jack has a teaching talent. He had talked about how exciting it was when his voice and guitar students did well. I think he might get back to that eventually and I hope he does. The retail hours are brutal. He works every weekend and has off on two weekdays. The store is open very late because it’s a gaming/hobby store. He can’t even do dinner with us on days he works and has had to miss family things over the past year.

I feel like Mason also would be a great teacher because he is passionate about books and loves to discuss them. He is also a great writer. He has a great voice that I think would be good for students, too. Unfortunately, subbing totally turned him off about anything in grades k-12.

So…

Mason applied and got accepted to a graduate program right at the end of college and we convinced him to take a year and work. A year passed, he applied and got accepted again, and he told us this is still what he wanted to do.

Mason moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico on Monday! He is attending St. John’s College which also has a campus in Annapolis, Maryland. He thinks his ultimate goal is to become a college professor.

Some views from his graduate dorm:

Common room:

He didn’t want any help getting set up but we hope he wants us to visit soon!

Amy