PARENTS, COLLEGE BOUND OFFSPRING, MIXED EMOTIONS!

So, let's just see where we are.  We've raised our kids, they're heading out the door to worlds unknown and we parents are left back at the ranch, in total disarray! As our kids are entering a new phase of their lives, so are we.  As they struggle with conflicting emotions about leaving, we struggle with conflicting emotions about being left!
   We are excited about their blossoming independence, but part of us still wants to  feel like we're in control, we're needed, we want to protect them.  What a tightrope we have to walk!  Will they hold onto our family values or adopt entirely new ones?  It's such a different world from when we went to college.  Aren't we entitled to be a bit more overprotective?  We want them to explore, challenge, question, grow, but what if they think everything we do and say is now wrong?!
   Bittersweet is the best word I can think of to describe this time for parents.  There is excitement, nostalgia, hollowness, loneliness, freedom, peacefulness.  One mother from Missouri wrote in LETTING GO by Coburn and Treeger (a must read for this stage in life!):  "I'm ready to go out to dinner more and to cook less, but I'm not sure I'm ready to have my primary parenting years behind me." Or from Pulitzer prize winning columnist, Ellen Goodman: "Tomorrow, for the first time in 18 years, the part of my brain that is always calculating time-school time, work time, dinner time-can let go of its' stopwatch."
  Just as freshmen are re-configuring and re-adjusting their lives away from home, so are we parents.  The relationships with remaining siblings at home will change, marital relationships will be re-examined, rooms in houses may change and most importantly, issues of middle age will slap us smack in the face!  Having daughters is especially painful for mothers at this stage, because we look in our mirrors and wonder how we got here so fast!  How can I be this old?
  Anxiety about finances, menopause, careers, hopes and dreams, elderly parents- can you say disorienting?  A child just left home, maybe an only child, and that is a major LOSS.  We parents are grieving!  Yes, it's a kind of death.  One moment, we're happy; the next, we're depressed.  We want to provide a safe and secure home base for our children, because they are feeling so insecure themselves. Little do they know what we're going through!  it's a tough balancing act, to say the least.
  Our kids want to be independent and self sufficient; yet, they still want to be nurtured and taken care of.  We, the parents, want to give our kids their freedom; yet, we still want to be needed and wanted.  The problem is negotiating this new path, and then re-negotiating throughout the four years.  Not an easy task.  One father writes: "When we heard from him, we had to listen to the melody, not the words.  The melody said,'I need to know you're around.' The words said,'I don't need you.'"
  Another blog, perhaps later in this first semester, will discuss what it's like when college kids come back home for visits.  What a whole other ball of wax that is!!  In the meantime, know that you WILL get through this and come out the other side just fine.  I know.  I've been there and lived to tell about it.  My best advice to you parents?  Recognize that this is, indeed, a loss that needs to be grieved.  Cry all you want and most importantly, do not apologize!!