Parenting - The Purgatory, Um, Blessing That Never Ends

The trouble with being a parent is that by the time you are experienced, you are unemployed. ~ Anonymous

Then and now????????

My oldest son is a college senior. Somehow, I thought he would never grow up and all the little problems of his tiny life would stay small. No such luck. Instead, they years flew by and I am sitting here wondering two things. When on earth did he go from diapers to driving? And how am I possibly old enough to be the parent of an adult?

Okay, so those questions will never be answered, but that hasn't stopped anyone from asking them and I know they  have been asked for, well, a really long time.

Anyway, bigger kids - bigger problems. The time proven axiom of all parents. I mean, when they were three, we worried about chicken pox and potty training.  Now we worry about them finding jobs,  moving into apartments, and suffering the pain of significant others dumping them on the night before they go back to college. Yeah, been there - experienced that particular level of hell. Some worry about them moving home. Others worry about them not moving home. It is endless.

Why can't they stay this small and happy?

At any rate, senior year must present a whole vast spectrum of anxiety for college students.  I remember them. First you wonder how it is possible that those four years are almost over (yeah, yeah, back to time passing too quickly again). Then you worry that you won't find a job. You go through angst over attending the dreaded college job fair along with a thousand other seniors in your position. And then there is THE INTERVIEW.

(I confess that I didn't suffer through that particular senior purgatory. I applied to grad school which was a whole lot less angst-ridden. That presented a whole other set of issues that we can skip until the next kid becomes a senior since he has already made the very bad decision to follow his parents to law school. So, it was a misery delayed for three years, but I was familiar with the problem since friends and fellow dorm residents wallpapered the hallways my senior year with rejection letters. Seriously, there were thousands of them. Okay, hundreds, but it looked like thousands,)

So, one day my son calls, asking if he is supposed to button his jacket. [Insert long pause here while I try to figure out what the heck he is talking about.] Mercifully, an explanation follows that he is attending yet another job fair and he doesn't know if he is supposed to button his suit coat. Aha! Yes, button the coat. Off he goes, distributing resumes like fireman distribute candy during a Fourth of July parade - throw and run and hope for the best.

And then there is a miracle. An e-mail. From one of the businesses. For an interview.  With a company no one ever heard of.  No matter.  He has made it past step one in FINDING A JOB. Then, miracle of miracles, another interview. Oh, joy! Oh, rapture! Oh, the stuff of nightmares!!!!!

Monday passes. Then, Tuesday and Wednesday. Thursday morning around noon, I get the call about the first interview. It goes something like this:

Son: Hi, Mom.

Me: How did it go?

Son: It took five years off my life.

Me (stifling laughter with every fiber of my being): Well, it is over now and you gained good experience. 

Son: My life will be ten years shorter come this time tomorrow.

Me (covering my mouth to avoid making cackling noises): Mmmm,  nnnnn,  wwwwww.

Son: What?

Me: Nothing. Soda went down the wrong way. Hey, look, it is just an interview. Maybe you will get lucky on your first time out, maybe not.  Maybe you will get an offer and then you will know it wasn't as horrible as your suspect?

Son: Yeah, mom.  Right. By the time I find a job, I won't have any life left since I lose five years with every interview.

Me: Okay, well, call your dad and let him know how it went.

Or this small small and happy?

At this point, I hang up so I wouldn't strangle myself while suppressing my laughter because no self-respecting mom laughs at her son's misery. And yet, we wise parents know that this particular misery tends to work out one way or the other in the end. It is a right of passage that all must experience - parents and kids alike.

He survived that first interview and the second as well. He will survive them all. The funny thing is that instead of looking at bumper stickers for ideas on where my children might apply to college as I did in the good old days, I now look for corporate headquarters as I run my errands, looking for places he can send resumes. Seriously, while driving to a farm stand recently, I noted all the corporate headquarters that have replaced the disappearing farm stands.

Yup. The parental torment never ends.  It just moves on from little problems to big ones. Once a parent - always a parent.

And thank goodness for that.  I think.  Maybe. Ugh.

Because of their size, parents may be difficult to discipline properly. ~  P.J. O'Rourke

Discovered a Better Plan

Empty nest syndrome is a feeling of grief and loneliness parents or guardians may feel when their children leave home for the first time, such as to live on their own or to attend a college or university. - Wikipedia

Day one of the empty nest. Sit around mourning the departure of children.  Write sappy blog post about too much silence. Eat pizza for dinner. Watch stupid reruns of NCIS on TV. Resist happiness at seeing Mark Harmon on the small screen in favor of being sad about empty house.

Day two of the empty nest. Do laundry - my own. Accomplish nothing whatsoever in the quest to eradicate the detritus of adult children from the house. Consider alternate plan. Discuss plan with spouse, the father of the previously mentioned children. Approve plan. Make preparations.

Day three: today. Drag self out of bed. Suddenly remember plan. Shower. Dry hair. Pack suitcase. Hide jewelry. Lock windows and doors. Load car. Wait for spouse, father of previously mentioned children, to return from early meeting. Wait more. And then a little more. Husband arrives and changes out of suit. Jump in car.

Flee.

North.

Arrive Lake Winnipesaukee, NH, mid-afternoon.

Find nirvana, heaven and paradise in one place. Breathe.

Discover there is nothing so miserable that cannot be cured with some green trees. . .

. . . blue sky. . .

. . . clear water . . .

 . . . and a sunset. 

Panic upon realizing it is not nearly as much fun without certain loud, heavy-footed, door-slamming, food-eating boys . . . 

. . . yelling "WOOHOO" at the top of their lungs. Remember they are too old to yell "WOOHOO" at the top of their lungs.

Rethink realization and discover it is just as good.

Yup, definitely, just as good.

Empty nest parents can rekindle their own relationship by spending more time together. Without their children to be their primary focus during the day, many such couples express that their quality of time spent together improves. - Wikipedia

The Quiet Sense of Something Lost

The quiet sense of something lost.  -- Alfred Lord Tennyson

The world is too quiet without you nearby.  -- Lemony Snicket

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The house is empty, quiet. The squeak of loose boards on the stairs and the floor caused by the inconsiderate footfalls of boys has disappeared. The endless rain of endless showers has stopped. Their doors are solidly shut to keep a thieving, grieving, dog from stealing the socks without mates that were left behind.

My boys have returned to college. The only sounds I hear are the ones I make.

It is the last Monday in August, the last day of the month and the last day, I have read, of meteorological summer.  Yet the electronic thermometer above my desk tells me it is ninety degrees outside.  So much for the end of summer and the beginning of school. The weather is conspiring to make the return to academics feel wrong somehow.

Of the twelve months in a year, my boys are home for just four of them now. They spend two-thirds of their year living elsewhere. From now until the end of the college year, they will be home for just about one month - a week at Thanksgiving, two at Christmas and another sometime in the spring. Not enough time to get used to their inconsiderate footfalls late at night and their endless showers in the morning. Not enough time to get used to buying cold cuts, cartons that hold two dozen eggs, and two boxes of cereal each week.

I won't need any of those things when next I shop for groceries. The receipt will be shorter. The cost will be half of what it was just last week. The refrigerator will have no leftover sandwiches from the deli.  The cupboard will have no Nutella or M&M's. Deciding the dinner menu will be infinitely easier. Cleaning up will take half the time. The dishwasher will be empty of glasses and he counters will be free of wrappers and boxes.

The tidiness of silence.

Ended, though, are the debates about who will take out the trash, walk the dog, haul the recycling to the curb. We will have to do those thing now although there will be less trash and far less recycling. Ended are the tussles about shoes left all over the house for the dog to steal, rearranged furniture, and laundry washed, but forgotten in the machine. There will be no more appeals for a couple of dollars for pizza or mini golf or the movies, no more fights about who gets the car and complaints about who has to park the cars one or the other left on the street. The car went with them back to college.

So, for now, there is only the silence cut by the hum of the ceiling fan and the occasional whimper of a dreaming dog or the slamming of the mailbox with the daily delivery. The phone has not even broken the silence of this last Monday in August, this last day of a once noisy month. 


These boys, well, these men, have gone back to college, back to their books, their friends, and the life we know nothing about - and probably don't want to know about. They have taken their noise - and my heart - with them, but we have text messages and email and telephone calls to hold back the tide until they return. 

After all, home is the place, when you have to go there, we have to take you in.

And this shall always be home, but they shall not fill it with their noise soon enough. 




Home is the place where, when you have to go there, They have to take you in. -- Robert Frost.