Hooray for Fall Break!

This weekend is fall break for many college students, including my youngest son.

Of course this means a trip to the grocery store, because I don’t think it’s fair to serve him popcorn for dinner. When any of my boys come home it brings into sharp relief how much my routine changed after each one of them left home.

I have always been struck by the flexibility that parenting demands. With the birth of ones’ first child, parents must adjust to round-the-clock responsibility for this enigmatic bundle of joy. Not only are most of us severely under-qualified for the position, we are expected to perform our duties without a translator and deprived of sleep.

Eventually we adjust to life with this new person, and by their first birthday we can’t even remember life before children. As time goes on, we manage to handle the crises with friends, the after school activities, emergency room visits and all the other demands of parenting with the ease of a CEO or by the seat of our pants. It’s tempting to sit down with a cup of coffee and pat ourselves on the back for a job well done. Then, out of the blue, you notice that your bundle of joy is about to graduate! You find yourself looking around for the camera crew from “Punk’d."  Surely this person you’ve taken care of for 18 years isn’t going to try to leave?

Well, it’s not a reality show, it’s reality. You adjusted to life with them, and with varying degrees of difficulty, you will adjust to life when they leave the nest. The good news is that although they will leave, they will also come back. The parent-child relationship evolves into something very different but just as enjoyable.

I was given a sign several years ago that life would go on after my sons went off to college. Driving along Rt. 19 just as the busses were lining up for dismissal at the high school I remember thinking to myself, I wonder what’s going on at the school today? Perhaps it was a school-wide field trip? Then I noticed the time on the dashboard. It was 2:20p.m. For years my day had revolved around getting things accomplished before my kids got home from school and yet I was oblivious to the fact that it was dismissal time!

People lament that there is no way to prepare someone for the roller coaster ride called parenting. I'm afraid that on-the-job training is the only way.

Now I really must get to the store!