The College Drop-Off

On Labor Day, my husband and I experienced a parenting milestone: The college drop-off. Despite this big milestone, I didn’t cry. As a matter of fact, moments before we said goodbye to our now college freshman, I told him he was being an asshole. While this is not the first time I’ve said that to him, my timing was very bad. Definitely not my best parenting moment. [I realize his behavior was just a defense mechanism, but he was still being an asshole #sorrynotsorry] But after forcing the obligatory group photo in his only-half-decorated dorm room, he embraced me the way he does and I melted the way I always do. I still didn’t cry, but my prior annoyance left me and I softened. After all, I was leaving my man-child, my baby, to start his new life as a college student. A life that is seven hours north of our home, at a school he’s never visited (thanks to COVID shutdowns), in a state he’s never been to before.

My lack of tears is somewhat explainable; This wasn’t our first rodeo. Yes, he’s our first child to go to college, but he spent his last two years of high school at a boarding school five hours from our home. I definitely cried then — he was only 16 then! But his two years away prepared both us this next move. Boarding school was, as we liked to call it, “college with with training wheels.” He had more freedom than a kid living at home, but there were rules. Lots of rules. And those rules (and all those eyes on him) were like our security blanket.

Now, as a college student, the guardrails are gone. There’s no more safety net. No campus lock downs. No house parents to check on him. No curfews to keep him in line. No adults looking out for him. Sure, living away from home at 16 allowed him to test drive freedom and dip a toe in the real world, but college is different. Temptations are bigger. Pressures are bigger. Challenges are bigger. Responsibilities are bigger … and consequences are bigger, too.

Yet, knowing this, I didn’t cry at the college drop-off. I think it’s because I know he’ll be great. I also know he’ll struggle at times. He’ll get homesick, make mistakes, get a few bad grades, oversleep, overdrink, and make bad decisions. I just hope he learns (quickly) from his errors and remembers that I’m always here for him, no matter what.