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Oct.
2004
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Off
to college: Kids want to fly,
parents afraid to let
go |
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James
Pankratz
Special to Parenting |
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This is the story of a long good-bye.
The expedition
Our older son was accepted at a university approximately
900 miles east. The date for moving into his dorm was
Aug. 27. As those of you who have sent a young adult
to college know, preparing to relocate someone across
the country requires exceptional organizational skills.
My wife stepped up to the plate. She began by taking
our son on a shopping safari, which successfully bagged
clothes, sheets, school supplies, a phone, and the now
obligatory laptop computer complete with iPod. One of
these items proved to be a source of much vexation later.
If we had tried to load all of this stuff into our family
car, it would have looked like the Joads’ truck
in “The Grapes of Wrath.” Fortunately some
generous friends loaned us their minivan, and at 5 a.m.
on Aug. 25, we set off on the journey. We sailed through
the potentially perilous Chicago commuter congestion,
stayed overnight in Ohio to visit grandparents, and arrived
safely at our destination the next evening. So far so
good.
The drop-off
On Friday evening, our family joined the family of our
son’s roommate for pizza. The fact that we all
hit it off should come as no surprise, since our son
and his roommate selected one another through e-mail
correspondence. They were so compatible they even brought
two of the same DVDs from home. After supper, our minivan
joined a caravan of others going up a steep hill to a
parking structure, where the stuff was unloaded into
carts by upper-classmen and women, and wheeled to the
dorms.
To avoid traffic congestion the next morning under the
blazing sun, my wife, younger son, and I walked from
the hotel to the university across a long bridge, a process
I referred to as “crossing the Nefud Desert.” When
a student in front of our son’s dorm offered me
a blue, squishy “stress ball” promoting the
school’s credit union, I accepted two.
Here the mood changed. When we met our son at his dorm
room, he was trying to find a tech support person, since
the Internet connection on his computer wasn’t
working. My questions were met with terse, irritated
answers. This continued through the campus family cookout.
Later as we walked through campus, I saw a young woman
screaming at her father to slow down, and overheard a
father remark to his wife: “He is determined not
to show us the slightest hint of emotion.” The
tension and strain seemed to be everywhere. But what
did it mean? Obviously we were miserable failures as
parents. I wanted to squeeze that lousy stress ball,
but feared that even that minor exertion would add to
the sweat running down my back.
The convocation
On the third and final day, at a convocation officially
marking the new students’ enrollment, I heard the
university’s president deliver the best speech
ever delivered by an academic. He asked us to imagine
the world’s population of 6.4 billion people was
represented by the 3,000 freshmen and their parents assembled
in the auditorium. He asked all the students with a red
sticker on the back of their program to stand up. They
did. He told them they represent close to half of the
world’s population living on less than $2 a day.
Then he asked all the students with blue stickers to
stand. They represented the 15 percent of the total population
who are illiterate. The third group represented the 7
percent who will contract HIV/AIDS, malaria, or tuberculosis
this year.
Then he told everyone to sit down except one student.
He told her she represents the 1/100th of one percent
of the world’s population who enjoys the privilege
of studying at an American research university. He emphasized
to the freshmen that what they do with this rare opportunity
matters to the rest of the world.
Now I knew the meaning of the tension. Our sons and daughters
were about to embark on what the keynote speaker called
the greatest adventure of their lives, and we, the parents,
were trying to let them go to get on with it. And both
students and parents were feeling a little nervous about
the transition.
The students were chomping at the bit to have the chance
to run their own lives free of parental hovering and
second-guessing. But silently they wondered if they could
pull it off without us. The parents want nothing more
than to see them grow into independent adults, but find
it hard to stop a long-term habit of hovering. They want
to fly, and we’re afraid to let go. And we’re
sad the time has come to let go.
After we hugged our son and got in the minivan for the
two-day ride home, I saw a mother crying near the elevator
at the parking garage and her husband who was gently
rubbing her back. They’ll be OK. And so will the
kids.
(Pankratz is a marriage and family therapist at Catholic
Charities Milwaukee Regional Office.) |
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