When Your Children Grow Up...and Away....

My older daughter is just finishing up her junior year of high school.  This means next year she'll be a senior and we'll be doing the college decision thing. We'll count down lots of lasts -- last first day of school, last classes, last dance, last everything. And then there will be a ton of firsts in her future, coming fast and furious, like they did when she was a baby, first time sitting up, first crawl, first step, first word, but instead they'll be things like first dorm, first college class, first roommate...and unlike her first set of firsts, I won't be there to witness them.

I have a lot of friends whose kids are a year or two ahead, and I've been watching them carefully to see how they've reacted to all their kids' lasts and firsts, and wondering how I will be when it's my turn to go through these in upcoming years.

It's interesting to me the different ways mothers have reacted to their kids growing up and on.  When I bumped into a casual acquaintance last year at the grocery store and she told me where her son would be going in the fall, I said, "Oh you'll miss him, huh?" Her response was, "Frankly, I can't wait until he leaves."

Another mother I know is devastated that her daughter is going to be living twenty minutes away. And then there's my friend with twin daughters, who loves them and wants what's best for them, but is mighty sick and tired of all the fighting and arguing between them, and having to shepherd them through many of each individual day's ups and downs.  They aren't going too far away -- a couple of hours  -- but she needs a break. 

When she told other friends that she was looking forward to her twins' living elsewhere for part of the year, she was shocked to find that people couldn't understand how exhausted she might be. 

Her friends told her that their children were their lives, and there was no way they would be relieved/happy/looking forward to their kids moving out. I was stunned by that.  I would think that most parents would look forward to their kids reaching these milestones and that by the time a child has been shepherded through eighteen years, seven of which are of the adolescent variety, that one might enjoy a little distance now and again.

As we move towards the college search, I notice a lot of people eager to place restrictions on how far away their kids can go, and some actually say it's because they can't bear to have their kids go out of state or more than a short drive away.  I think college distance can be a valid financial concern, or that some kids need to be closer for a variety of emotional or social reasons, but I wonder for how many of these parents its just so they can be as close as possible to their kids.

The fact is, our job as parents is to work ourselves out of a job.  I'll miss my girl tremendously when she goes, but I want her to.  I want her to have lots more firsts. I'll just watch from the sidelines, and I'll be okay with that.