Notes

In early March, the FBI wrapped up the fantastically named "Operation Varsity Blues" with a list of indictments that ranged from conniving parents to corrupt admissions workers to shady coaches--all of who helped affluent students cheat their way into top colleges across the country.

It’s undeniable that the entitled families who cheated and spent vast sums of money to get their kids into nationally recognized schools deserve the disgust and criminal charges they’re facing. However, this scandal can also serve as a learning exercise for understanding the moral limits of parenting.

As with anything, there’s a moral line where advancing your own kids’ interests at any cost goes from admirable to ugly. We all agree that parents should do their best to help their children reach their best possible future. But we also recognize that bribing college officials to shortcut the admissions process is just plain wrong.

So when do we surpass the moral line? When a parent asks a colleague to help their son or daughter land a good job? When a parent requests a writer to help out their child on their college essay?

If we think any of these examples are acceptable, then we're guilty of devoting more time to the preservation of our own advantages than to the strength of institutions that benefit everyone.

Now, it may be easy to label the corrupt rich as the sole culprits due to their proven dishonesty. But it’s also the standard practices of upper-middle-class parents that created the corrupt college system we all know.

As crazy as it may sound, earned success is a lot trickier for those who have a smoother pathway from birth. How can someone prove that they earned success if people assume that the person was only successful because of what they were born into? We have to have more reasonable expectations of kids and a more profound sense of obligation to everyone else’s. By focusing on all students versus just our own families, we can spend less time trying to game the system for our own advantage and more time trying to fix it. Things like strong public schools and fair acceptance and hiring practices are essential in such an effort. But for them to work, we all have to recognize that our obligation to ourselves has limits. At the end of the day, we all benefit from a stronger educational system.

So volunteer at a failing school. Donate money to scholarships. And, well, don’t bribe anyone as part of an elaborate scheme to get your kids into an elite college.