Several weeks ago I was drawn to a piece written by Beth Teitell in The Boston Globe titled “Parents get competitive on college.” When I finished reading the article I thought that perhaps a more fitting title might be: “My child has achieved more than your child” or “Boasting parents, an increasing phenomenon.” Teitell focused on the number of parents who brag about the colleges at which their children have been accepted, a practice that involves a much larger audience than ever before due in great part to the outreach afforded through social media such as Facebook. The article began by describing the reaction of one mother scrolling through Facebook and reading a comment, “We’re deciding between Northwestern and Georgetown” (the we’re is a revealing pronoun to use in place of “My son/daughter is deciding”). The mother reading the Facebook posting observed, “It’s so annoying. It’s like, ‘My kid just got into such-and such a school and he’s so great.’ Blah, blah, blah.” Teitell wrote of another parent in the Boston area who received a less than enthusiastic reception when she said her son might attend Pitzer College in Southern California, his first choice. This parent said, “They’re like, ‘Oh,…
