Me too Linda. This was a hard goodbye even though she’s a senior.
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Piggybacking on those saying difficult goodbyes to seniors, everyone focuses on how hard freshman drop off is. It IS a big transition and it’s helpful to be prepared.
But in the “nobody told me” realm, goodbyes remain difficult. They are steadily moving out of our orbits into their own and while this is what most of is strive for as parents, it’s also heartbreaking to see them go. Every. Time.
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Parents have gone soft. The services are fine.
Actually she’s at CGA, so a smaller world with fewer pretensions to Roman legion hardiness.
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Parents are wimps, for sure.
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Guilty as charged.
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Don’t count on getting to enjoy summers with your returning college kids. Our S20 only came home for a week after sophomore year. He’s making a life there instead of here and doing a fine job of it, but It makes dropping off S22 even more bittersweet. We’ve had a lovely time though, and despite advice on this thread not to linger, we stayed a whole week in his new city after flying across the country. We’ve had separate time to explore the area and made clear we had no expectation of time with him and that he should not feel any obligation. Happily though, we’ve had several meals together and been able to hear about new friends and to witness in person his excitement. We leave tomorrow knowing with certainty that he made the right choice, and with enough hugs to sustain us until semester break.
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Yep on not banking on summers at home. My D has worked elsewhere every summer since freshman year.
Same here. The Army kept our son busy with field exercises and other military requirements every summer.
Dropping off for freshman year…not a problem. We were as excited as our kids that they were embarking on a new adventure. But each time they left for a subsequent college year…it became closer and closer to actually really moving out…and those departures tugged at my heartstrings more than freshman drop off.
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As much as we love having them around, I couldn’t wait for the kids to get back to campus because I know that’s where they truly want to be. Same for S who has since graduated and moved away. Just took a family trip and had a blast hearing all about his life in person vs. text. But he loves it and was happy to drop him off at the airport when we were done.
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We have a D20 14 hours away and a S22 24 hours away. Her dropoff was much harder, I think because it was during covid and neither of us knew what to expect. There was so much uncertainty. There were lots of tears at that goodbye and she told me several months later that the tears actually made her feel good as we don’t always get along that great and it made her realize how much we love her. With my freshman son we arrived to his new city 4 days before move-in. He made a new friend at the airport and they started going out on campus the night we arrived. They went out for 4 nights in a row and made a ton of friends before they even moved in. This kind of eased me into the whole thing. Each day we were there we could see him becoming more and more comfortable and confident. He was constantly texting his new friends and we could tell he couldn’t wait to get dinner over with each night and go meet them. However, once it was time to move in, he didn’t rush us out after move in or the next day after convocation. It was almost as if he wanted us to stay as long as possible. He had a harder time letting go than I imagined (we both shed a couple tears) but he is so happy in his new home.
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I think you meant to say D20 and S22?
Thanks for sharing your story.
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My husband sent me a text telling me not to cry. So when my oldest was getting ready to leave for the first part of orientation and started to cry I was ready. I told my '22, go off have fun and I’m confident that you are ready and can do it. A couple of hugs later and it was over.
Was hard for me as it’s thousands of miles away in a a place where we have no family or friends. But I did it and I think it’s going to be fine. I worked hard on not making it about me in the weeks prior to the “send off” Kids are ready, IMO, so letting them know you believe in them is important.
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