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I picked the car up after an oil change the other day and Greg, the shop owner — a friend from way back, whose youngest is our youngest’s age — looked up from what he was doing and said, “So, when they leave for college, how long do you miss them?”
He was joking, a bit, but I wasn’t when I said, “every day.” It’s been two years since we did what he had just done the previous weekend — drive our oldest child off to a new school, move her in, and leave. Two years ago, for the very first time I found myself on the other side of the great divide — not the professor who meets with the anxious parents, but the parent who hopes one day to meet at least one of her child’s professors. I thought of that day again recently as I saw parents clutching maps and credit cards as they walked around our campus last week. Some children will push them away, glad to be “free” for the first time; others will cling, calling home often as they negotiate new situations without 24/7 parental guidance. But few parents, I imagine, will drive off without a second glance. They’ll look over their shoulders, as I did, wondering how their children will do without them, and how they will do without their children.
That last was actually the part that surprised me. I thought I’d worry about my daughter as she became more and more independent — that I would be answering her questions, allaying her anxieties, responding to her needs. But the fact of it is, she was ready. She called home some, left a few messages on Facebook, but mostly took care of herself. I was the one who needed some anxieties allayed. I’d grown used to having a(n almost-) grown daughter around, someone with whom to go see silly movies, to try on clothes, to talk about ideas. I lost a sounding board without realizing, really, that I had had one.
Many years ago, when my daughter was two or three, I was at a family gathering when the subject of children came up. I remember pronouncing with the authority that only a new parent can muster that I was really loving being the parent of a pre-schooler, that it was a great stage, much better than infancy. (We’d suffered through colic, which is a bonding experience of sorts but not one I’d recommend as enjoyable in any way.) My dad, whose youngest child was in her mid-twenties and just entering a PhD program, said, “I really like being the parent of graduate students, myself.”
At the time it made me a little huffy — as if all our childhoods (I’m one of four) had just been something to endure, something like the colic we had survived. But now I realize what he was saying: each new stage brings its joys. And being the parent of an adult child brings bittersweet ones: the contact may be less frequent, but it can be deeper and richer.
More and more of my friends are sending their children off to college right now, and all of them seem, like my friend Greg, to be coming to terms for the first time with what that means. It means negotiating a brand-new relationship with someone you’ve known his or her whole lifetime; it means giving up control; it means a change in the family dynamics with those who are still at home. (For the first time ever I live in a household where I’m the only female — even the cat is male!) It takes elasticity, as Rosemarie reminded us last week, on both ends.
Of course, my daughter’s been away all summer — so there’s no loading up the car this time, no tearful good-bye, no moving in to a new dorm room. Rather, she’s finishing up a research project, checking out the book lists for her classes, and getting ready to welcome her apartment-mates back to their shared space. And the big transition here at home is her brother’s entry into high school, coming up in just a couple of weeks now. I’ll let you know how that transition goes when we get there…
