I come from a family where everyone gets a BA (the women in my family were going to college as far back as the 1890's), and two of my grandparents and one parent had/have PhD's. High expectations, enrichment in the home, and an understanding of how higher education works came for free.

But I was also growing up in an era when parents didn't advocate. My parents made sure their kids went to the "good" public school, but that was the extent of their intervention. We were expected to lock-step through the system, because that's how things were done. We were expected to excel while lock-stepping, and as long as we did it was assumed that our schooling was a success.

In fifth grade I lobbied for a grade skip. No one ever directly said no, but nothing ever came of it. I suspect it was because I was already struggling socially, and they assumed a skip would make it worse. But I still find it hard to countenance that the adults simply gave up on my academic needs.

I finished high school so disaffected that I was completely unprepared for college. I took a year off twice during college to get my act together, and in the end I did well and got into the PhD program of my choice. But I'm still stuck with the memories of spending twelve years of my life bored and miserable.