(You can read my first post about Families Weekend here.)
There was only one reason I didn’t dissolve into a puddle of tears when we dropped our son off at college for his freshman year. And that was the knowledge that I’d see him again in six weeks when I flew out for Families Weekend. (Also, in a rare moment of self care, I’d reserved a couples massage for me and my husband at the hotel where we were staying. Power move on my part.)
So I was amazingly dry-eyed when the freshman orientation organizers announced that we had 15 more minutes to say goodbye to our kids before they herded them off to the first of a packed agenda of Orientation Week (O-week) activities.1
When the time came, I hugged him, exchanged “I love yous,” and watched him walk out the door of the commons (a.k.a. the dining hall) with his new group of best friends. A slight lump formed in my throat. I held it together, though. In fact, I handed out tissues to other parents.
After we returned home, every time I found myself missing him, I consoled myself with the words “Families Weekend.” It became a mantra as I daydreamed about the glorious reunion we’d have. The hugs! The lunches at his favorite restaurant, where he’d tell me all about his classes and his new friends! Maybe a dinner at a nice restaurant! I even reserved a hotel room with a sofa bed. After all, wouldn’t he jump at the chance to get out of his dorm (or “residential college” as they call it at his school) for an evening?
I pictured us laughing and watching SportsCenter late into the night as C filled me in on the the latest sports news. I pictured him giving me details on his new job in the football team’s “Video Ops,” shooting footage of games for the football team to study later. I pictured room service.
I think you know where this is going. Even if you don’t have kids in college.
The Thursday night I arrived, C had a test in his Multivariable Calculus class. (Better him than English-major me.) No problem! I’m a Self-Sufficient Mom(TM). I went out for fabulous Tex-Mex with an old college friend and his girlfriend. During dinner, C called to ask for my credit card number so he could order Uber Eats, since his servery was closed. No problem! Son must be fed! After dinner, my friends took me of a tour of the neighborhood so I could gawk at Texas-size mansions.
Wen I got back to my hotel room, I called C, anxious to coordinate when I’d see him in person the next day. The school had organized a full Friday of talks and activities for the visiting families, which should have told me something, but what I cared about most was the full two hours allotted for lunch with our students.
“I’m here,” I said.
“Okay?” he said. He didn’t sound thrilled. He sounded tired.
“When do you want to get together?”
“I don’t know. I have class at 11.”
“The schedule says that parents are supposed to join their students at lunch.” When in doubt, resort to the printed agenda as though it were the Ten Commandments.
“I don’t think you’ll like the food.”
“I don’t care. I’m here to see you.”
A pause. “I’ll want to sit with my friends. I don’t know if other parents will be there.”
“But the agenda says…”
“I don’t know,” he said again. “You’re asking a bunch of teenagers to plan.”
“You don’t have to plan. The agenda says we’re supposed to join our students at their dorms.”
“I don’t know,” he said for the third time.
My throat grew tight. “I flew all the way out here.” I was embarrassed by how upset I was getting.
My son sighed. “I know. There’s a lot going on.”
“Then when am I going to see you?”
“I don’t know.”
This would not do. I was deferring to him too much. I was the parent, right? “I’ll come to your dorm tomorrow. I don’t need to be joined at the hip with you. I just want to have some meals together.”
“Okay.”
I’m not proud to say that after I hung up, I called my husband in tears, which is always guaranteed to get a good response out of him. (←sarcasm)
“I feel like I’m getting caught in the middle,” he said.
“You are in the middle,” I responded, undeterred. “We need to present a united front. Tell him he has to spend time with me.”
I cringed as I said the words, mortified by my neediness, but I was miffed! And crushed. Where was the kid who wanted to spend almost every evening with me watching sports and streaming shows? Had a made a terrible mistake by coming?
Believe it or not, there was a time when I would have responded much, much worse to this situation. I probably would have gotten drunk, and weepy, which would have been followed by fraught, ill-advised phone calls and texts that would made the situation much, much worse. Instead, I tried to channel what I’ve learned during 6+ years of sobriety. I practiced “restraint of pen and tongue,” as we say in recovery. I texted a very small group of close friends who are also moms of college-aged kids. One assured me that something similar had happened to her as well with her four (!) sons, adding:
I think it’s a good sign that he’s thriving there and has things to do as a result. Whether it be school commitments or friend commitments, he’s got a sense of purpose and is finding his way out in the world…exactly what we as parents hope for our grown children. They’re trying to show us that they are doing well without us.
Another friend suggested I just enjoy myself in the city and not even bother my son. “Make it fun for you,” she said. “He’s not a bad kid. He’s just feeling his big dick college freshman energy. It has nothing to do with you.”
Slowly, I began to feel a little calmer. I thought of a blog post by
(that I couldn’t find when I wrote this post but that I have the link for now, thanks to the wonderful Julie) where she recounted a very, very similar story of Families Weekend and its discontents. It helped immensely to remember that I wasn’t the first person to be sort-of-snubbed by their new college student.I thought about something else I’d heard, or that someone said to me, or that I saw in a meme: “Parenting is the only job where if you do it well, they don’t need you anymore.” Except for money and laundry advice, but I quibble.
I cried a little more and went to bed. Somewhere in the back of my head, a little voice said, “It’s been a long day. You’re tired. You’ll feel better in the morning.”
And you know what? I did. Expectations are traps, I reminded myself.
After spending Friday morning with some other parents, we headed over to our sons’ dining hall. “There’s C,” someone said. I scanned the room like I was looking for Beyoncé, and when I saw him, he pointed at me like a game-show host and we both started laughing. My lanky 6-foot-two-inch kid, who seemed to have grown an inch in the previous six weeks, loped over, hugged me, and everything was fine. I liked his friends, I liked their parents. I relaxed.
On Saturday, after another group meal, C and I went back to his room to deal with some paperwork (fun! bonding time!), and I finally had some time with him alone, just the two of us complaining about nonsense and teasing each other and making each other laugh. I complained about the smell in his room; he told me not to open the windows. I ignored him, because Boy Smell.
We walked to the football stadium together in 90-degree heat that didn’t feel so bad in the shade with a breeze blowing, and after he’d left me to go do his video ops thing, I went to find the other parents at the families tailgate.
On Sunday, I went to see the first few minutes of C’s flag football game before I left for the airport. On the sidelines, I chatted with his roommate’s parents, who confessed that they, too, hadn’t spent as much time with their son as they’d hoped to. When my Uber arrived, I called my son over to say goodbye. “Thanks for coming, Mom,” he said as he hugged me.
I’m pretty sure he meant it.
Right after I left, he intercepted the football.
P.S. About that banner image: During Orientation Week, we had our first medical emergency. My son’s campus is known for its large population of squirrels, and my son, an animal lover, had tried to pet one. It bit him. (“It was so cute tho” he texted me.) He called his O-Week advisor, who told him to call the campus EMS folks. They bandaged him up and assured him that the campus squirrels don’t have rabies.2 Upon discovering he was not yet 18, EMS called us to get our permission to NOT take our son to the hospital in an ambulance. For a squirrel bite. One hand, thank God for their abundance of caution. On the other: that would have been a very expensive squirrel bite.
Parents were strongly encouraged to leave the campus after the afternoon’s scheduled talks, but a few parents still messaged the Facebook parents group to ask if they could take their student to dinner. This was discouraged. My son “forgot” his retainers in his hotel room, but rule-followers to the core, we resisted the urge to drive it to him and instead mailed it after we returned home.
I learned by consulting Dr. Google that squirrels and other “small rodents” almost never carry rabies. You’re welcome.
I just read your latest and laughed out loud.. the squirrel!! Love the term submarine parent! Thank you for the book recommendations I read How can I help you? last week. Weird but fun! I'm reading the Daughters of Yalta right now. learning a lot!
I had missed this when it went by, but when I saw you at Books, Inc, I *knew* I wanted to hear more about Families' Weekend and empty-nesting in general. So happy to have found this now!