No Profound Words

Posted on by Jennifer Latch · Leave a comment

jennifer latch

I wish I had something beautiful and profound to write about this photo. Something deep and inspiring about the love of three girls and how lucky I am to have such uniquely different children.

I wish I had beautifully constructed sentences to express the joys and challenges of motherhood in a humble and endearing way that makes you feel like you are not alone and that we are all in this together. I wish I could say things right now that would give you hope and make you feel like life really can be fun and everything you dreamed it to be when you were young.

Well, I believe all those things and often times I feel all those things, but right now I am just sort of… whatever. I am empty of big sentences that say big things to make people feel big emotions.

I just finished putting the baby to bed, the girls are at sleepovers and I washed away a bunch of dog feces in the outside area of my building. My feet are freezing and it’s Friday night. I just missed out on a huge party with a bunch of local entertainment high-rollers because I put getting my girls to their sleepovers first. I ate eggs for dinner while looking at houses online. It seems like I am complaining. I am not. I would much rather my girls see their friends than me stand in a large room sipping champagne pretending to be important. The eggs were pretty tasty too.

So tonight there are no profound words. No heartfelt stories.

Just a picture with all my girls looking at the camera at the same time and woman who is finding satisfaction in normalcy.

 

 

What Do You Want to Do When You Grow Up?

Posted on by Jennifer Latch · 6 Comments

The girls have so many choices ahead of them as to what they want to do in their future. I am unsure if college will be part of that future, but it may be.

I didn’t go to college. My parents didn’t go to college. My grandparents didn’t go to college. Beyond that? I don’t know anyone on my parental line who went to college, but my uncle did so there’s that.

I am not of the mindset that in order to succeed in life you must receive a higher education. I firmly believe hard work, guts, intelligence and determination trump a diploma any day. However, higher education is vital if you want to learn how to do certain things.

Right now Chloe wants to be an artist of some kind and Ella wants to be a zoo keeper. Chloe would benefit from further arts education and Ella would need a degree of some kind in zoology.

Steve and I have discussed what would happen if the girls wanted to go to college. How would it be funded? Of course there is always the possibility of financial aide, but we had decided if they wanted to attend college then they would need to work out financing it. Ideologically that works out, but I really wanted to go to a private boarding school and my parents didn’t make me pay for that. Well… I paid for some of it. I covered the last two weeks before I graduated on a student loan basis. Why should I make my children wholly responsible to take on a huge financial commitment at the beginning of their adult lives? It’s a bit of a trap.

Last week I was invited to a dinner hosted by Scholar Share, a college savings program managed by TIAA-CREF. They are a non-profit investment firm which works with the California Treasurer’s office to set up 529 investment funds. This basically is a program where you can put money into a special investment account and pay no taxes on the earnings provided they are used at a qualified higher education program. If you withdraw the money for other purposes you will be fined 12.5% on the earnings on top of needing to pay capitol gains taxes, but you will never be penalized or taxed on the principal regardless of how you use the money.

What got me excited about this program was hearing you can open an account starting with $25 dollars. Other family members can gift monies to the fund and the benefactor of the account can be changed at any point provided they are in your family. If Chloe decides to join the circus the account can be transferred to Ella. If Ella doesn’t need it, Phoebe, and if Phoebe doesn’t want it… heck, maybe I will take some community college ceramic classes after all the girls have flown the coop.

I was really impressed with how good natured the people from ScholarShare were. They really have the purpose to help families and kids make smart choices to plan ahead so they are not hit with huge payments or debts down the road. Somehow it seems a lot easier to stomach saving beforehand rather than paying afterwards, especially if the amounts you need to pay into the account to make it work is not too much. Most of us could come up with a regular payment of $25 dollars or so right?

I haven’t opened accounts for my girls yet, I am still doing my research and ensuring we find the right type of savings plan, but I have decided I want to start some sort of savings for their higher education or even simply money to help them get started in their next chapter after they leave home.

What are your thoughts on paying for you kid’s college? Did your parents pay for your higher education? Did you work your way through college? Are college loans totally bumming you out right now? I would love to hear your experience with this area because I have none. I am sure some of you amazing readers have words of wisdom on this area.

This post was sponsored by ScholarShare in collaboration with the One2One network. My opinions are, as always, my own.

 

Finding Her Way

Posted on by Jennifer Latch · 2 Comments

Today I watched this girl do two military style pull ups meaning with her palms facing out and from hanging.

Recently she awed me with her progress at school and suddenly she is reading chapter books and doing multiplication.

This past weekend she convinced me to dye her hair. We have done it before, but this time it was with semi-permanent Manic-Panic Passion Red that faded into a fantastic hot pink. I don’t like that we died her hair. I was loving her long blonde waves, but doing this brings her joy and boosts her confidence, so in weighing all the pros and cons this makes sense for her. It makes me feel like a really cool mom and a really bad mom all at the same time.

She is working so hard to do everything right but pretty much every day this is the girl I end up losing my cool with because she is at “11″ with every single emotion from grief to joy. Even when she is sleeping her body is smashed into her bed like she is stuck to the mattress.

Something tells me she is trying to find her way through the big wide world and if she needs to dye her hair hot pink to help her with that, for now, that’s ok.