<p>Hi everyone,</p>
<p>D-Day is soon arriving for my first child to go off to college. Once in a while I visualize how I will be that Day and...depending on my mood, I see myself happy and proud...and other days I want to cry my eyes out.</p>
<p>Anyway, if any parent would like to share their first Drop-Off Day and have any words of wisdom, I would love to hear them!!</p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>We got S1's stuff all unloaded and into his room, and then we went back to the car for a moment where I was gearing up for my big cry. H prayed for S1 before we drove him over to drop him off. The next thing I knew, S1 was crying (and he is a big, tough, macho kid). I hadn't seen him cry for probably 5-6 years. So then I had to hold it together while we comforted him. After he dried it up, got out of the car, and stoicly walked towards the dorm, I had my turn. :-)</p>
<p>Oh, and he has been deliriously happy with his school and is already looking forward to the start of the fall semester.</p>
<p>After her father and brother struggled and worked to carry all her things and we made her bed & helped her unpack and H & S got all electronics to work D said she had to meet a guy she had met on facebook and arranged to meet at 4. And then she flitted away like a beautiful monarch butterfly. I barely had time to wave.</p>
<p>Thank goodness S was two years younger and came back with us. This year he'll be gone, too. I don't want to think about it! Wah!</p>
<p>Best advice someone gave us--have something fun to look forward to after dropping off the kid and setting them up in the dorm room. That way, you don't go back home or to the hotel room and stare blankly at the wall.</p>
<p>My S's first move-in day (three years ago) was about typical for our family.</p>
<p>He was told to pack the car the night before. He didn't finish the job. So there was a lot of frantic scurrying around in the morning.</p>
<p>This meant that we left later than anticipated. This meant that I was worried the whole time that I wouldn't be able to get back home in time to get younger D to her high school marching band rehearsal.</p>
<p>No sentiment. Just annoyance. Typical for us.</p>
<p>We enjoyed move in day...which is one of the last times parents are all over the place in the dorms and you are welcome in their rooms. Our son was not embarrassed to stroll around with us as he got his ID card, met his RA, shook hands with countless new faces and as his Dad and I helped rearrange furniture. Enjoy it and take in as much as possible. I think I also had a couple "perfect" items to finish the room that I enjoyed sending there after we got home from online places like Pier One etc. I spent a lot of time thinking about his supplies and room when I was adjusting..and I have stepped out of that entirely now.
HOWEVER, on day two a big convocation ceremony for my son's new class was the good-bye moment, when parents were asked to depart after the program....and I ended up in my hotel room sick watching the Ted Turner movie channel..so perhaps it was more stressful than I could acknowledge at the time. I was very happy for my son but became literally ill in the night before the big day and thus missed saying goodbye.<br>
Since I had spent so much time with my eldest, I did not feel cheated in any way, and felt grateful for the wonderful trips I had made with him when he was 18. Like many CC parents, we spent a good deal of time looking at colleges and supporting the search process and this meant that his father and I each enjoyed outings and overnights with our budding college student. We got to know much more about his personality by simply following his college fit search and we treasure those memories. In fact, if you can embrace senior year as a bonding time, I think it gives a good foundation for the next four years as your son or daughter takes on the excitement of a new peer group.
My husband and I have happy memories of learning from peers in the college years and shifting away from parents as guides..and so I am truly happy that my son is getting so much instruction merely from observing his fantastically unique and varied new peer group at Duke. Learning has to shift to finding our sea legs with your own generation, and if you can meet all your son and daughter's new friends with respect for their important roles in their lives, there is no rivalry or loss really. Eventually, your child will be introducing you to their "new family members" from their college, and you will also have the pleasure of knowing their new circle of friends and adding in new faces to your extended family.</p>
<p>After we dropped our son off, we continued driving to a vacation destination. His school was on route, so after our vacation we stopped back at the school and took him out to dinner. That helped a bit, but I won't lie. My heart was really aching during his first semester. He was dropped off in August and did not come back home until mid November for a 3 day weekend. We had a family crisis (illness) at that time, so this was not quality time spent with us. S came home for Thanksgiving for nearly a week. That really felt great. After Thanksgiving he returned for 3 weeks and then was home again for 3 weeks. I found that second semester that he was away was much easier for me. I was more used to our son's absence, and I knew his routine in terms of calling us at home. Also, the second semester break divides the semester better than breaks during the fall semester (2 shorter ones and they fall too close together) at the school S attends.</p>
<p>The actual drop off day went smoothly. We drove to the school the night before. We got up early to beat the traffic at the U. S was one of the first to move in. H and I helped S get organized. H helped with the electronics, and took a run to pick up a bookshelf that was preordered. I stayed and hung up clothes. When the room was in shape we just hugged and said our good-byes (no tears from me in front of him). I put on a phony smile, and it was a tough thing to do. No tears from S or H.</p>
<p>Odd man out...as usual. When dropping DS off his freshman year, I didn't weep at all. After the summer after his senior year, it was more than time for him to be at college. He was happy, cheerful, excited, and wanted to be there. There was nothing to shed tears about. Ditto DD...she was also thrilled and I got into my car and left. I found out later that she had been a little weepy and I'm glad I didn't see that part.</p>
<p>Drop off was an interesting experience. My D is a rising senior, so, fortunately, the memories are fading into the clouds of time. Nonetheless, I share the following of a dropoff at U. Chicago:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>expect total chaos. Parking was a mess. Another parent (who, it turns out, was the father of my D's first fling at college) managed to run into a street barracade and knock it into our car. There were not enough carts to move stuff promptly into the rooms. The elevators were overloaded. And it was all great fun because the kids could care less about these trivialities.</p></li>
<li><p>expect your kid to be pumped and probably quite unconcerned about us parents. They are starting a new life and want to get on with it. With intros to roommates, suitemates, hallmates, the challenges in organizing a small dorm room, mandatory hall meetings and such, their plate is full.</p></li>
<li><p>Chicago has a nice touch in the PM. All the families gather in Rockefeller Chapel to hear a few speeches. The admissons dean's speech is famously funny. The academic dean's is less so. But it does not drag. After the speech, the new first years gather together and are led on a parade through the heart of the campus. At the gates of the quad, orientation aides sort the parents away from the kids, who go for a class picture and into their dorms without parents for an evening of meetings, meals and such. We parents are sent to a nice reception with plenty of alcohol set in a beautiful quad. Then we're supposed to leave. Of course, those of us from a distance hang around and have breakfast with our kids the next day and go on the mandatory shopping expedition to Target.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>All in all, more fun than sad.</p>
<p>Everyone who posted here: Nice posts.</p>
<p>Is our culture crazy or what? We have to pay exorbitant amounts of money to be emotionally tortured. LOL.</p>
<p>Leaving children at wonderful colleges is certainly bittersweet and very Darwinian. Our job is to ensure the success of the next generation.</p>
<p>I second Faline2's observations about move-in day: It's fun and you get to meet parents from all over with the same valiant, bewildered looks on their faces.</p>
<p>Northeasternmom: You're my hero with enough money for vacation! Brava! Sorry about illness that made freshman year difficult.</p>
<p>We left Troy soon after all the things were in his room and we helped him settle in a bit. A big hug and we were on our way home and he was beginning a new adventure.</p>
<p>mythmom, Thanks. We really could not afford that vacation, but we drove and took it in the least expensive way possible, while still making sure that we would enjoy ourselves. H was under a lot of pressure with two parents that were having major health problems in addition to his usual pressures at work. It was really over the top, so he decided that we needed to get away. We have no regrets.</p>
<p>We were the same as Thumper. S was really eager to go to school. He's at our state u. and knows many people there. His roommate is his high sch. best friend. So there was absolutely no apprehension on his part or ours because we knew he was more than ready to go and would be fine there. </p>
<p>We moved him in. Roommates parents were there too. We all went out to eat dinner and then took S back to the dorm. As we were pulling up to the curb his cell phone rang. It was one of his friends from home who is in sch. there also. Apparantly there were already plans afoot for the first night of college freedom. S gave us each a hug and strolled off to his dorm, phone to his ear, laughing. I didn't cry. He looked so happy that I couldn't be sad. </p>
<p>I will add that during his senior year of high sch. he led a very independent life. Between sch., work and his social life we saw very little of him that yr. He was in and out all the time. It was a good way for us to gradually get used to him not living with us at all. It really made his leaving for college a lot easier.</p>
<p>I'm with thumper - no tears here. I was a little worried ( as always when she is out of my sight LOL ) , but mostly very excited for her. I did still have a d at home so that was some consolation.
My mistake was planning to stay for a couple of days in the area ( 10 hours from home) to help her settle in. Unnecessary....after the first day of moving her in and getting all of the little extras from Target, etc, we were not needed. She was off with new friends, busy with her new life. We cancelled the next nights hotel reservation and made our way home happily. (which made D2 quite happy! )</p>
<p>Geez,
I just took my rising senior to the airport to return to college campus, and I still have that ache. Its so nice when we have some time together.</p>
<p>We went through the same process as newmassdad, except no parking (we took public transportation down from the Loop), no elevators in the dorm, and the big event was that one of the three huge boxes we had shipped there had never been delivered, so we spend a lot of time on the phone with UPS and at the drugstore replacing necessities that had been packed in that box. When the kids separated from the parents, it was pretty emotional -- they pass through a gate beyond which are a bunch of cheering upperclassmen -- and I certainly got a little misty-eyed. The reception for parents after was perfectly lovely but filled with zombie-like, depressed grown-ups.</p>
<p>We then went for dinner at some relatives in another part of the city, which was a perfect thing to do. Their children were young and not going anywhere anytime soon. We left the next morning without going back to the university; we would not have felt welcome. (This year the orientation packet is very explicit in asking parents not to do that.)</p>
<p>The other thing that was notable about drop-off day was the effect on my then-rising-junior son. He had not visited any schools with his sister (although he had seen a number of college campuses over time). He loved everything about the university and how it looked and felt -- just head over heels about it. He was walking around in a Tintin t-shirt, and no fewer than five girls (and a few boys) started conversations with him about how cool Tintin was. (Most people in his world at home had no idea what Tintin is.) He thought it was Heaven. That was a great kick-off for his campaign to get back there full time.</p>
<p>I was much more emotional than my D. On our way there, I thought of Richard Wilbur, a student there years ago, and what he had written about his daughter in "The Writer". That afternoon, the poem was read by the President of the college in a parent meeting. I lost it when he came to the lines: </p>
<p>"Young as she is, the stuff
Of her life is a great cargo, and some of it heavy:
I wish her a lucky passage."</p>
<p>I am happy to say that I find her so much more confident and mature this summer. Perhaps she will indeed navigate out of her "bourne of time and place" and go far.</p>
<p>Ah, padad, the Richard Wilbur poem. Isn't that part of Amherst's application?</p>
<p>Newsmassdad: Chaos at UChi some consolation S turned it down. Not really. Funny speech and march across campus sound great. They do things grand there. S almost went for the phoenix mascot. I am silly to mourn. His school is great.</p>
<p>Northstarmom: Good for you. I totally agree with your valueds, even though I can't always get myself to live them. We need to take care of ourselves, too.</p>
<p>Ted O'Neill's funny speech at the University of Chicago welcoming ceremony two years ago is funny enough (and apposite enough to CC) to be read in full:
[quote]
Kid comes into an admissions office, says, “I’ve got an act for you.” Admissions guy says, “What kind of act?” Kid says, “A family act.” “OK, how does it go?” </p>
<p>Kid says, “High-school junior spends $4,000 on a Princeton Review class and SAT scores go up 120 points—now he figures he doesn’t have to go to Nos. 10–15 on the U.S. News list but can get into 1–10, so the mother takes a second job to pay off the Princeton Review and buys the Platinum Package from an independent college counselor for $30,000 so Junior can be advised about when to help his fellow man and how best to package the experience, and when to take power naps. Father, meanwhile, talks to the accountant, finds out that even a home-equity loan won’t bring enough cash to get the kid into the right summer program to help repair castles in Carcassonne as a community-service project, without which Junior won’t get into colleges 1–10, to say nothing of having the money to send the boy to Tibet to practice spinning prayer wheels as proof of his spirituality and concern for diversity and international harmony, and besides there is the tuition for sophomore daughter’s harp camp in Maine. So he decides to sell the car, which means mom and dad have to use the Metra to get the younger brother to his 2 a.m. hockey practice, which he’ll need if he wants to use the athletic hook to get into an Ivy or at least a Little Three, a trip that takes one parent away from Junior’s homework—the family has a pact that at least one parent will write at least one draft of each required paper due senior year, and Junior has carefully chosen the “most challenging” senior coursework—AP stats as his math, AP psych as his science, History of the Vietnam War as the social science, Literature of the Vietnam War as the English elective, and Reading a Balance Sheet as preparation for his college internship, which he means to be the culmination of his liberal-arts education. </p>
<p>Parents are working so many extra hours and spending so much time on the Metra train on the way to hockey practice that sister is ignored and stops practicing the harp, thereby settling for a future without a prestigious college education, hence, perdition, has herself heavily tattooed, drops out of the Key Club, joins a heavy-metal harp band, and spits venomously whenever Junior pulls out his SAT word list and adds another entry to his online collection of homonyms. Metra goes on strike, little brother can’t get to hockey practice, is kicked off the team, begins to think of a future at the community college or emigration to Germany where he can join an apprentice program for tool and die makers, and Mom and Dad begin to feel strains in the marriage but vow to stay together to see Junior through the second round of the SAT IIs, because they know that with support, and coaching, he will be able to get an 800 on the writing exam unless he is tempted to be either original or imaginative, which would result in a lower score and his having to settle for, heaven forbid, a state university, which means no job at Goldman Sachs, so why bother to go to college at all? </p>
<p>Father finds that he begins to daydream of the time when he carried Junior’s egg on his toes beneath a flap of his own skin during the long Antarctic winter and vows that the boy will never go to college in a windy and frigid Midwestern city where, if the egg drops, cracks will reveal the icicles that had been his not-yet fledgling son, and in his identification with the fragile frosty egg decides that we will only apply to Duke, Emory, UVA, and, of course, Dartmouth if we can get in—damn the cold, they are rated 7th in U.S. News. All the while, the mother swims under the ice eating enough chum to regurgitate meals for her newly hatched chick to make him strong enough for cross-country practice, which should look pretty good on the application despite the fact that his little webbed feet limit his speed, and he finds that flopping on his belly to slide along the ice doesn’t really improve his time. Family meets and decides to prune away younger brother and sister to help foster the blossom that they wish Junior actually had turned out to be, they sell the home and move to Kazakhstan, hoping that geographical diversity might work the trick at any, please, just any, top-ten college or university, and they are last seen deciding to which school they will apply Early Decision.”</p>
<p>The admissions guy looks at him and says, “Wow! That’s quite an act—what do you call it?” </p>
<p>“The Meritocrats.”
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Denison had a really nice ceremony for the freshmen (son #1) the afternoon of move in - and I felt good about that. Faculty were there in regalia, all the kids paraded by them and shook hands, there were nice inspirational speeches, all set on the lawn of that beautiful campus... It was fun to see all my son's new classmates in one place and dressed up.</p>
<p>I didn't feel as emotional as I thought I would. Managed to keep control at least until we were out of the state.</p>
<p>But this time around, with my baby leaving, well, no promises!</p>