Parents & Family

For Parents, Saying Goodbye is the Ultimate Test

• “Can I really afford this?” Unless your child is one of the rare ones who is self-supporting in higher education, parents can expect to pay an average of $12,603 for a public college, $23,600 for a private college – every year. This has me wandering about people who have lots of children close together in age. Do they have a diamond mine in their back yards? Increasingly, having at least a bachelor’s degree is seen as a necessity in our society; it is the most reliable path to a career and financial security. Student loans can help, but with the down side that your child will graduate burdened with debts.

• “Is he or she really prepared?” Did I do my job as a mother? Move-in day at the dorms is a test for parent-child dynamics, for the child’s maturity and social skills, for the patent’s patience. Sometimes one last parenting challenge arises unexpectedly. In the heat and humidity of our particular move, one young lady broke down sobbing on the steps of her dorm. “Daddy I hate this place! I want to go home!” Dad and Mom stood by perplexed, their arms loaded with pillows and linens, as their daughter worked through her emotional storm and finally came out smiling, on the other side. A cold Pepsi contributed by a dorm-mate was the turning point. As my son struggled with the lock on his dorm room door, I berated myself, he’s always had trouble with keys; did I do enough to help? Will he be standing outside his room in the dead of night, hopelessly rattling away at his lock, all because of me? When does this kind of worrying stop, if ever?

• “Will he be all right?” As parents we have faced this question so many times; nursery school, kindergarten, summer camp, choir trips, all have taught us to fear and hope and pray for a safe homecoming. College feels like really handing them over, though; in his sleeping and waking, in his meals and his studies, another world will be sheltering him and other adults will be his helpers. A whole complicated environment will take him up; a strange academic jungle will surround him. Will they realize how precious he is? Or will he be just a number?

With most of the heavy moving done, we took a lunch break at the residence hall dining facility. Here incoming students and parents were still arranged in family groups, but the students were beginning to connect. Before the parents’ eyes a new world was forming, a young adults’ world in which parental worries will be a distant irrelevance.
On his third trip through the food line my son bought me a fortune cookie: “Your trouble will cease and fortune will smile upon you.” I’m glad to hear it. I thought hard about that fortune as I drove a borrowed van away into the sunset, having left a big piece of my heart behind.
I’m still worrying about that door lock, but I’m getting used to the idea that I can’t do anything about it now. Here is a parenting lesson that I guess we have to learn painfully on our own: how to say goodbye.

Eve Browning is an associate professor in the Philosophy Department at the University of Minnesota Duluth.