An excerpt from A Schizoid at Smith: How Overparenting Leads to Underachieving.

“Work always lacks effort,” “Just no interest whatsoever,” “Inattention,” “Disturbance,” “Silly conduct,” the teachers’ remarks read. All those criticisms could have defined your scribe’s output.

They are rather the report card marginalia of a class clown. Another outstanding pupil with an alleged 29 detentions in one year and an unbidden nuisance in class exhibitionism. No contemporary would have ever voted him Most Likely to Succeed, but he offered hope to those of us who will never graduate as Merit Scholars.

“The guitar’s all right, John, but you’ll never make a living out of it,” his darling Aunt Mimi vented. In time, Lennon would be regarded as the nonpareil lyricist of his era.

Low achievement was inconsequential relative to his over-the-top talent and the astoundingly high musical compendium he gifted the anointed boomers and the fortuitous listeners to come. John had the adoration of his Aunt Mimi to compensate and keep him in check. The fact of the matter is, the verse closest to his heart acknowledged this simple truth, All You Need Is Love. Consider the jeerleaders and cheerleaders in your life, as they may very well determine its outcome.

The ’70s resounded as a dilution of the ’60s with a still distinct anti-Establishment sentiment. Yet Sweet Sixteen, a stand-in cotillion, weathered the mayhem. Some mothers lavished victuals for my little coming out as mine remained hospitalized on this tropical July afternoon.

My elusive father made an extemporaneous entrance. “Kaylee, your mother can cook for me anytime,” Dad kvelled. His supervisory style plunked a finger in every pot. And then I watched incredulously as the other nine digits were suddenly wrapped around his toolbox. Never one to let grass grow under his feet.

So while we teens were scarfing down the recompense for a decade and six—staying on the straight and narrow throughout this groovy time—the head of the household started sanding the porch door. Undismayed pops resolved right then and there to replace its ragged screen. Returning moments later with his garage shop creeper, Sydney assumed a fetal position on the flagstone patio. Hammering to his heart’s delight while we danced to ours and a medley of top ten tunes, he syncopated with a catchy—count ’em 1 per annum—16-beat rhythm. Dad was a session musician and sideman that juddering day.

“I don’t want to go to camp,” I demurred. My father swabbed the lens of a Nikon as I cravenly tiptoed into his study.

“Is that because you have your period?” he inquired.

Speechless, I flushed the color of menses, orbs twitching. And no, that wasn’t the uppermost reason, but I could not articulate the exact cause of my disinclination. One is the Loneliest Number for thee, not me.

That wrecking agent, withdrawal, deadened my dwindling desire for any group activities, even those deemed pleasurable. Yet camp contributed to versatility. Activities might bolster my applications. My grades would not guarantee admission to what my parents desired, a name school.

Entrance exams and an early call. Sydney dropped me off at the testing center by Claypit Pond with all the finesse of a newsboy hurling a periodical at a zoned-out address. “Think!” he shouted, leaning out the Dart’s rolled-down window before speeding off, leaving skid marks.

All those other kids sweated bullets as they penciled oval quiz answers. And there I was, trying to slay the dragon of disassociation. The blurriness blunted my response time as my brain waged an uphill battle, torn between facts and fears.

Flagging focus and motivation did not make this schizoid much of a pedant. Not the nitwittery of the past, not Honor Society of the present, and unlikely any kudos in the future. While my sororal equals predetermined their rightful stead at The Seven Sisters’ colleges, I envisaged mine as an éminence grise to reigning rock stars, their indispensable aide-de-camp in hot pants. Mick and Keith would confer VIP seating in their private plane, relying on me as their adroit linchpin when Truman Capote, Lee Radizwell, and other hangers-on wore thin.

Before jet-setting and transmuting to a boldfaced name, I would, however, board a bus for a seemingly interminable ride disembarking in decidedly less glam Bar Harbor, Maine. Eight hours and eighteen minutes of motion discomfort and Downeaster riffraff chucking glass soda bottle grenades at the unsuspecting driver (he pulled over at one point), we arrived at the campgrounds, an imposing Cottage Era 28-room waterfront villa with majestic Acadia National Park as its locus.

Ecole Arcadie, an immersion school for girls, was set on nine acres with its own pond and a private deep-water dock. Mandatory French made me mal a l’aise (ill at ease). The bedwetting of Camp Pembroke begat another disquiet since, aside from spotty language command, I dreaded spotting. (Diavola labeled those bloodied dribs and drabs that sullied sanitary napkins as “slugs.”)

Would La Directrice expose me and my slugs, with a foreign tongue lashing, one that I hardly spoke, let alone understood—that is, if I could pay attention long enough … Would its property owner, Dr. Richard Gott, follow in my tracks?

I derived some comfort in knowing that Audrey was also attending, so I had the relief of her familiar, fair face.

Waking up to spectacular conifers and a refulgent Mt. Desert Island denoted halcyon days. The nearby blue-nose ferry played reveille as it set sail for Nova Scotia every morning. Saltwater afternoon swims and rubbing elbows with a bonafide DuPont successor heightened the bonhomie.

Ecole mollified the rigors of Francophilia by screening a recent release on Saturday night. New Wave Movies from the 1960s—seventh heaven for any film buff—mitigated our fumbling with this language of love.

We also had mixers with the neighboring niche camps, one for remedial reading and the other for golf (the stutterers and putterers). On weekends, we could explore the town’s quirky local tchotchke merchants.

Yet even in these beauteous backwoods, I decompensated and, after brabbling with my roommates, escaped the fireplace-appointed dormitory room to recuperate with my more sympathique acquaintance, Carlotta Virgin. (Mais oui, that was her real surname.)

“L’enfer, c’est les autres,” the monumental Philosopher- King, Jean-Paul Sartre, weighed in. Hell is other people. Preach it, brother, to the schizoid choir.

Blair Sorrel is a writer and author of A Schizoid at Smith: How Overparenting Leads to Underachieving.