I’m getting fired. Thursday is my last day. I saw it coming, but chose to ignore the signs. I’ll be part of a crowd of thousands of parents clutching pink slips, so I feel bad complaining like I’m special or something.
We’ll look ancient standing near the excited, young freshman on move-in day at the University of Colorado. In varying degrees, we’re depleted, stunned, worried and proud. The kids will check each other out while monitoring their text messages . . . for what? Is there something more important than this gut-wrenching moment? We’ll eyeball their roommates, act jovial, over-stay our welcome, and hot-foot it to the dormitory bathrooms to regain our composure.
I’ve heard the goal of parenting is to put ourselves out of a job. Our kids move on without a backwards glance. We’ve provided all the guidance, love, and nagging they can handle. Long ago, our voices became background noise, like the adults scolding Charlie Brown in the Peanuts movies.
All summer, I’ve beaten back the urge to fill conversations with advice, warnings, encouragement, like a student hoping to score big on extra- credit questions long after the final exam has been written. We parents are slow to catch on, stubbornly refusing to clean out our desks and hit the bricks even with security breathing down our necks.
Throughout the college application process, we’ve been steadily marginalized and prepped for our new role as the silent money partner. At times, standing quietly on the perimeter, I’ve felt embarrassed at being so involved with my son’s K-12 education. Like all good baby boomers, I sailed with the prevailing winds and raised my child according to the 1990s weltanschauung: Provide opportunities, stay involved.
At the orientation, we rehearsed our new one-line script. When the inevitable “stress dump” phone call comes from our student, our response must be, “That sounds like a tough problem; how are you going to handle it?”
The drop-dead date for tuition payments is Aug. 31, but your child is now in charge. Drop/add is the first two weeks of the semester, and the students take responsibility for that. You’ve been laid off.
I’ve never been sort-of fired before. I spoke with Joyce Kinde, the compassionate assistant director of parent relations at the university. She said move-in day and the first semester are really tough on parents, but gone are the days of parents dropping kids at the curb and not connecting with them in any meaningful way until Thanksgiving.
“Every day, I see freshman walking the campus talking on cellphones — with their parents!” A generation of kids, joined at the hip with mom and dad, still needs their advice and emotional support, she said. Or is it the parents who need support? I imagine the phone call to our son: “Can you remind me how to use the remote control?”
I’ll set my child free, but maternal instinct is persistent. I’ve adopted a puppy, but everybody knows that’s a cheap ruse. No amount of fussing over obedience skills or fretting that coyotes are plotting to pick her bones clean fills the hole in my nest. I’ll peek into prams and smile wistfully at squirrelly middle-school kids raising hell at the mall. I’ll visit my child’s room and weep uncontrollably. It’s temp work, but it’ll have to do for now.
“Find what you love,” I’ll tell our son before exiting out the heavy doors of Baker Hall. The back seat of the car will be empty. We’ll merge onto Highway 36 and make the interminable drive home, past the Butterfly Pavilion, the Mister Twister II, and the skate park.
I’ll check for messages. It may be an involuntary separation, but I’ve heard the client occasionally requests further consultation — on a purely part-time basis, of course.
Don’t call us. We’ll text you.
Julie Savoie (jslivetolaugh@gmail.com) of Englewood is a homemaker and volunteer.
