Dirty laundry

I have a small suggestion for how to make the world a better place. The First World, at any rate: We as a society need to stop publishing real-time mini-memoirs of ordinary people's child-rearing experiences. By this I mean, if your son is currently 19, you should not be allowed to tell the world the following:

During Nate's final year of high school, I impersonated him online, filling out and submitting 11 versions of the Common Application for undergraduate admission. The guidance counselor at his private school told parents such "clerical" support was expected. It became my full-time job. Nate was apathetic about college applications, even with (or maybe because of) such competent staffing. High school barely engaged him. His assignments were often late or incomplete.

So perhaps Nate does not share mother Bonnie's last name. But Nate is clearly a real person, one whose poor performance in high school and college has now been recorded in Slate, rather than in a concerned email to Nate's father, where such revelations belong.