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The Cost of College is Making My Daughter Angry and I Get It

And I don’t want to become one of those “back in my day” people.

Vanessa Torre
5 min readDec 20, 2020
Photo by Pixabay via Pexels

My daughter started her first job this week. She’s working at a local car wash, checking people in, getting them into the wash bay, and selling month-long memberships. She’s excited and I’m a proud mama.

Last night, she was telling me how much her paycheck was going to be and I reminded her of the importance of saving half of it. This is what I did when I had my first job slinging popcorn at the movie theatre where my two best friends had gotten jobs, as well.

I told her that I gave half my paycheck to my mom for college costs. She made a face.

“What’s that? What’s the face?” I asked her.

She told me that if one more person told her how they put themselves through college working part-time and now she should do the same, she was going to scream. Then, apparently, I started making a face.

“What’s that? What’s the face?” she asked me. Like mother, like daughter.

I told her I was doing math in my head. I have a degree in English and a “doing math face.”

I do spite math. This is when something gets my dander up and I run…

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Vanessa Torre
Vanessa Torre

Written by Vanessa Torre

Top 10 feminist writer. Writing, coaching, and relentlessly hyping women in midilfe. linktr.ee/Vanessaltorre Email: vanessa@vanessatorre.com

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