Back To School? Not This Year.

For the first time in many years, I will not be sending a child off to school. My oldest is in graduate school, but he lives with his wife and I’m not paying so it doesn’t feel as if I’m actually sending him off. Every August, for many years, has been a busy time preparing three children for grade school, middle school, high school, and college. Each August has held so many feelings for me, and I assume for my children. Often, I was ready for school to start back up, to get back on a schedule, to get a little bit of time to myself, and because my kids were clearly ready to go back.

On the other hand, August has always made me a bit sad. I love summer. I love summer break and especially summer breaks with my children. I loved when they were younger and we would hit local public pools and beaches. We would stay for hours as they would run around with friends. I’d read a good book and we’d go home in the late afternoon sun burned, exhausted, and so happy. I also loved having my children home for summer breaks when they were in college. To get that daily time with them as young adults has been such a joyful gift.

This summer, our house has a revolving door as my adult children live outside Chicago but come visit frequently. Yet now it feels different. They are adults. Thankfully, they are off of our payroll. They have lives and apartments of their own. They come to visit, but not to stay. Home is somewhere else and they look forward to going back to their adult homes even if they do still love their childhood home. They aren’t going back to school. They are adults going to their adult lives.

Nostalgia for Childhood and The Joys of Emptynesting

How quickly this all occurred! They were just babies, toddlers, teens, and college students. Now they take on the world as adults. Did we prepare them for the often-harsh realities of adulthood? I hope so. I’ve offered to pay for any therapy that they seek that may have been caused by their periodically dysfunctional parents!

Parenting brings so many feelings all at the same time. There are highs and lows at every stage, from caring for a newborn to sending grown children off to their adult lives. #parenting #emptynest #motherhood #backtoschool Click To Tweet

How is it that parenting brings so many feelings all at the same time? Pride, fear, joy, terror, excitement, terror (Did I say that already?), love, and hope. There are many young families in our neighborhood and so many young children at the bus stop. I look at the sweet young faces at the bus stop and get a lump in my throat as I often miss those days. I also look at the parents who look pretty thrilled to put those kids on the bus and I can summon up that feeling as well.

Empty nesting isn’t bad and it’s much cheaper than paying for college. I’m so grateful for the school years and I’m so grateful to have wonderful adult children. It’s all a journey, it’s never boring, and it has been more educational than any of the formal education of my life. Now, when do I get some grandchildren?

Love,

Lisa Kaplin Psy. D. PCC