I just wanted to take a moment to have a word with all the girls out there with friends having a child leave for their first year at university. I am now going on my third year of this and must say that this year I think I will handle it better; some of us just have a really hard time with it.
I really enjoy my son and I
enjoyed having him in the house everyday. Even though I helped him select the University and I went for the orientation and everything, nothing could have prepared me for the devestation I felt that day dropping him off.
Or even the the months to follow.
I cried like a baby for months. I felt separated from a person that I did not want to be separated from. Everyone told me the same thing:
It’s okay, it’s for the best, you knew this was coming, he’s doing great.
All true but unfortunately not very helpful tips. I look back now and wish I had known what was coming and had prepared for it by maybe having a girls’ night in afterwards; a girlfriend, a bottle of wine and some nail polish maybe. I needed to vent and almost mourn but had to go back my family and still be mom to others in the household.
So if you have a friend out there that you know will be facing this, make sure they know you are there, make sure they know that other women do suffer from this — and I mean suffer. Just be a girlfriend and support her during this. Believe it or not, come the third year, you are starting to feel more comfortable with your new role and you do move on and even know that there is more pain to come but that these small steps off to university will prepare you for the big blow!
Jean is an urbanmoms.ca member, mom of four and writer. Please share your comments on her story below.
I watched a show of Oprah in which the theme was letting go when your child goes to university. The experts felt that this right of passage should be painless and that if the mothers had lives of their own and had prepared their children properly, this should be an easy transition. Sometimes the audience gets into a cultish mode where just because an expert is giving an opinion they don’t let themselves think things through. It may have also been that a lot of the audience was not at this stage and could not relate to the discussion. There was only one Mom who was inconsolable.
They made this woman out to be some kind of neurotic inadequate mother, and not one person came to her defense. In fact, Oprah slighted her for being so vulnerable and weak. I was so outraged I had the urge to write the show but never bothered. I just feel that we analyze things so much these days. We don’t let our true feelings show, especially if it goes against the pop psychology of the day.
When it comes to any right of passage, whether it’s having a baby, getting married, watching your teen go their first prom, watching a newly licensed driver in the house take off with the car, and yes, letting them go into a world on their own, whether it’s university or a trip around the world, I believe we have the right to cry our heart out.
When my daughter left for the first time, I worried a lot, probably unnecessarily, but they are still very young when they go to university. It’s different when they go to camp because you know they’ll be supervised 24/7, but university is different. The latest research which has been discussed on many shows and in several articles is that the brain is not fully developed at eighteen and these young adults hardly have the capacity to comprehend the consequences of their actions. Then there’s the peer pressure. There are dangers like walking at night, and trusting new people, and you do have to hope that you’ve done your best, but no one is going to tell me not to worry just a little, and if I want to cry, I will.