My firstborn, Anna, will graduate from high school next week, and I'm feeling all the feels. I've basically been preparing for this moment since she learned to walk. That's when it dawned on me that there's a conflict of interest in my being the one to teach my child how to be independent. First she moved away from me with tentative baby steps. Now she's taking a giant 300-mile leap.
I feel like I'm graduating, too. Transitioning to this next stage of parenting is a hard passage, even though I've always planned for it and it's a privilege. The magnitude of my emotions brings me back to when Anna entered the world. I felt I'd crossed a threshold that couldn't have—and shouldn't have—been thoroughly revealed to me ahead of time. Parents don't share every detail of childbearing and child-rearing with prospective parents, which is probably why the planet is still populated. Perhaps my friends with children in college did me a favor by not sharing everything about anticipating and adjusting to this change, so as not to overwhelm me.
But there's comfort in sharing, and I'm overwhelmed anyway. So if you have children who've moved out of your home, how was that experience for you? Write to me at andrea@time.com. And if your children are still small, I'll remind you that it's the last call for the TFK Kid Reporter contest: If you know young people who have great writing skills and lots of questions, encourage them to apply by June 16.
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