Neo-NeoCon: Parents and College Freshman: The Long Goodbye.
posted by Helen at 7:22 AM
Thursday, August 26, 2010
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12 Comments:
That's when you realize your kids are really growing/grown up. My youngest son is a senior in high school this year. Odds are he'll go to college somewhere that is several hours away. I'm suffering from pre-empty nest syndrome now.
my step-daughter goes off to college in 5 days.
yippeeeeeee!
That's when you realize your kids are really growing/grown up.
You wish...
25 is the new 16, I think.
I left my oldest daughter at college last week. I had no problems with long good-byes but it hit my wife pretty hard. She was fine on the way home (only two hours) but the next day she was what I can only describe as grief-stricken for the rest of the day with intermittent bouts of crying. It started when she walked past our daughter's unoccupied bedroom. She came to terms with it within a couple of days though. I guess she hadn't prepared herself as well as I had.
I have to admit, this has never been a problem for me. So far we've sent 2 to college and 2 into the Marine Corps (MCRD San Diego) and the first thing I did upon coming home was start mucking out the bedrooms. I wrote letters and attended graduations, and frankly I was just glad that they were doing so well in their new environments.
Of course, we still have one at home (he turns 13 in a couple of weeks) so maybe it will be different when he departs.
I've launched five of 'em. It was a celebration of successful preparation for (quasi-) adulthood. We were excited, then we moved on.
I don't get the people who weep and carry on. You've had 18 years to get ready for this moment... it's not as if it came as a big surprise.
Well, I see the other side of it, as the young women and men are dropped off at college.
Some of them are ready, and sometimes not.
But it is natural to feel the separation...
LOL! This article reminded me of the day I was 'dropped off' at 18 and one week to launch myself into the world in my new job and starting uni.
Dad was fine. Mum was a mess. For quite some time. I was the last. But none of us ever went back home. It's normal for kids to leave home. That's called 'successful'.
I remember the day my step-son moved out. The little kids were playing, I was painting a bedroom or something, more renovations. And he was watching TV. He turned the TV up loud because of the kids noise so I turned it down. We did this a few times. In the end I told him it was MY TV and if he turned it up again it would go off. He yelled at me he would 'move out of home'. I said 'fine'. So he did. My then-wife came home a few hours later and asked where her son was. I told her he'd moved out. She just laughed and figured he'd be home by nightfall. Nope. That was his 'launching'. I immediately converted his bedroom to my new office so he couldn't come back. LOL!!
In the end he was home every Sunday for sunday lunch where he would eat like he had not eaten for a few days. Which he likely hadn't. It was time for the boy to grow up as he was not listening to me and his mum was hopeless as a parent. That was a funny 'launching'.
I had an ex-girlfriend who came back home for Thanksgiving to find that the part of the house where her room had been, was demolished.
The phrase that comes to mind: "That's old school."
OT but wanted to note that Men's News Daily, a source for pro-male material and Dr Helen columns, is apparently shutting its ports. God Speed.
This is no joke: when our youngest son left to join the Navy, my wife and I sold the house and moved. We were a bit vague as to our new address, too.
When he was getting ready to leave, my wife and I wondered what we'd talk about. He'd been a poor student in high school and a bit of a discipline problem. Fortunately, he grew up a great deal while in the Navy. He then met and married a terrific woman. As he advanced in his Navy career, she fully supported him (she's a lawyer) in his work to advance himself. The Navy sent him to college and when he graduated, he was commissioned as an officer. Week after next, he starts graduate school at the Navy's behest.
Now, his older brother is a different story...
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