Dear Daughter, There’s No “Right Way” To Do High School

Sweet girl,

I hear you up there in your room, trying on first-day-of-school outfits and organizing your binders and locker decorations. It takes me back to when we were deciding what you should wear for your first day of preschool and making sure your name was Sharpied into your backpack.

I’m a little nostalgic, thinking about those days, but I don’t wish we were back there, because where you are right now—staring down this enormous first in what will be a long line of them—is exactly where y...