It’s a simple white oval with three big, black letters: JMU. But to Wilma Bowers, who sports it proudly on her black Audi sedan, it’s an act of subversion.
In just about any other community, driving around with a bumper sticker for James Madison University, rated one of the best schools in the South, would be a point of pride. But this is McLean, one of the most affluent communities in the United States. Flaunting a JMU bumper sticker in a field of Harvards, Yales and Stanfords, Bowers says, is a rallying cry.
“It’s one of the ways I advertise,” says Bowers, the Parent-Teacher-Student Association president at McLean High School, one of the top-ranked public schools in Virginia. Not pride in her alma mater, but a movement she’s leading that seeks to upend the achievement-at-all costs intensive parent and school culture in McLean.
“There’s such a status thing here: ‘I went Georgetown. I want my kid to go to Georgetown or better.’ It’s such a rat race,” says Bowers, who has lived in McLean for 24 years. “Nobody is taking a step back and asking, ‘Is going to Princeton going to make me happier in the long run? Is this even right for my child?’ Because there are real consequences to living this way.”
Bowers knows it’s a high-stakes parenting arms race in McLean and communities like it. The obsession with grades and college résumés can overwhelm everything. She wants people to back off — and is trying to get them to, with film screenings, workshops, lectures and meetings with clergy and mental health professionals.
Many fellow parents think that disarming sounds good, in theory. The problem is, they’re reluctant to try it with their own kid.
So, the pressure mounts.