This week’s question comes to us anonymously:

My child is in high school and I’ve been in deep mourning for the last two years that they’ll (likely) be leaving me first for college, and then for...life! What advice do you have for connecting during these years, and then staying in touch without being overbearing once they really do move into adulthood?

First off—congratulations. Congratulations on getting your kid to the launch pad. Because it is hard, which I am sure I do not need to tell you. But parent to parent? We should absolutely acknowledge the success of raising a child (very hard), who then becomes a tween (even harder), who then becomes a teen (nigh impossible), who then becomes a young adult (exhausting), who then becomes a fully fledged adult (fucking finally). Throw yourself a party, because you absolutely fucking deserve it.

Secondly—get ready for the saddest day of your life.

When my daughter moved into her own place I was incredibly excited. Like a lot of kids her age, she would’ve probably left sooner but we got hit with a global pandemic which rightfully fucked us all up, and in many ways is still fucking us up because rather than dealing with it, we (and I mean the big social “we”) just decided to pretend it didn’t happen/isn’t still happening, and that it had no affect on us. Which it very much did. And it absolutely had an effect on our kids, who I’m only singling out today because they’re the topic on the table. Anyway, by the time she moved out I was super excited and ready for it to happen. I knew this was an important step to take in becoming an adult. You cannot become an adult living in your childhood bedroom, and you cannot become an adult living under your parents’ roof. At best, you become an adult-sized dependent. So seeing that she’d built up the confidence to venture out on her own filled me with pride. Then she packed up her stuff, drove off, and I went into a fetal position in her empty bedroom for an hour, crying like I hadn’t cried in a good long time.

When your kid leaves it is the happiest day of your life and also the saddest day of your life. And a lot of other feelings in between. All of them are real, and all of them need to be honored. The idea of an adult-sized human asking you “what’s for dinner” as you walk through the door, which you found incredibly irritating just a week ago, becomes something you start missing. A lack. An absence. A reminder that your kid is out there, somewhere else. Are they even eating?! (They are. They’re eating the trash you wish you could still eat.)

I left my parent’s house the day I turned eighteen. Right into my college dorm. My parents were on vacation at the time, a family vacation that I’d strategically opted out of. I went to college in Philadelphia, where I grew up. My parents assumed I’d be commuting to classes from home. But it was never actually discussed because I’d learned that bringing up something that I cared about only increased the chances that it could get taken away. Also, they didn’t ask. At the time I didn’t think anything of the fact that they didn’t ask, by the way. It’s only writing it down now, so many years after the fact, that I’m thinking, “boy that was weird.”

So I did all my college applications on my own, negotiated all my student loans on my own, and handled all the logistics on my own. (This is a superpower that all ECI’s (Eldest Children of Immigrants) possess. Do not fuck with us. We can do paperwork, we can forge the signature of every adult in a three mile radius, and we are not afraid of negotiating with utility companies.) By the time my parents returned from their vacation I was safely tucked away in a college dorm, learning how to hack a cigarette machine.

The first time my parents visited me in my dorm room, my mother sat on the edge of my bed and cried, asking what she had done wrong and why I had abandoned her. She did this at a volume that the entire floor could hear, as was her intent. After all, this performance wasn’t for my benefit. When my brother ended up in prison for dealing she let me know that would’ve never happened if I hadn’t run away to college, abandoning my entire family, by which she meant her.

I mention these events only to let you know that I have a pretty good grasp on what “overbearing” might be.

I fear phone calls from my mother because they always start with an admonishment. A statement on how I’ve failed her. A statement of how I don’t call enough. How I haven’t centered my life around her, and her loneliness. And while I do try to find a reservoir of empathy for her, it’s become harder over the years as I’ve realized that she doesn’t miss me, as much as she fears being alone. She would gladly trade my life for not having to live her own. She will never understand that the admonishments for not calling only lead to more not calling.

I once overheard Erika call her uncle and him saying, “Erika, it’s so great to hear from you!” and it honestly broke me. The idea that you could call a family member and their reaction would be joy wasn’t something I was used to.

I hate the phrase “empty nest.” It implies that we had but one job, and now it is over. I sometimes wonder if it’s not just that we fear missing our kids—which we will—but that we also miss the sense of purpose. Raising a kid tends to take up a lot of our purpose. And then they’re gone, leaving us with nothing but loss, and a societal mandate to calmly await death, or our next act as doting grandparents. Fuck that shit. The fact that your kid is off to do their own thing is to be celebrated. It means you’ve done well by them. The fact that your time is now freed up to cause trouble is also to be celebrated. After I was done crying in my daughter’s empty bedroom I went to the hardware store. Within a week, I’d painted, built bookshelves, bought the most comfortable reading chairs I could find, and turned that room into a library.

Our children should know that we had lives before them, during them, and after them. If for no other reason than they need role models of how to live a life. Which gets lived until the very end.

Your kid will fuck up multiple times. Just like you did. Just like I did. Fucking up is a prerequisite for growing up. You need to let them. (Oh my god, this is hard!) I can always tell when I’m dealing with an adult that’s had to work themselves out of a jam, and an adult-shaped dependent who’s been bailed out of every situation they’ve put themselves in. An actual adult has a history of working themselves out of jams, knows when to actually ask for help, and is always willing to help someone else out of a jam. Because they’ve been there. An actual adult knows what ingredients are and doesn’t get all their meals delivered.

In a sense, I was lucky. (Ha ha.) Because when faced with a parental challenge I would just ask myself how my parents would deal with it—and then do the opposite. But I have to confess this actually made me overprotective of my kid, who is of course no longer a kid. It took a lot of work (by which I mean therapy) to love my kid enough that I would let her fuck up and learn from her mistakes.

When she moved out, we made a plan that we would have dinner together once a week. And for the most part we’ve done that. Although there’s the occasional rescheduling. Once in a while she’ll text and let us know she can’t make it because she’s doing something with friends instead. And while I’m always happy to see her, I’m also just as happy that she’s out there doing something with her friends. I’m thrilled she’s found her people. We’re also her people, of course. But we will never, and should never be enough. We celebrate the time we spend together, but never admonish her for the time we don’t.

Last month, she came over for dinner and told us she was moving. I immediately pictured myself going into Dad Mode. Renting a truck. Packing boxes. Helping her decide what to keep and what to discard. Cleaning up the old place. Helping to set up the new place. It’s what I do. Thankfully, I had the wherewithal to ask her if she needed help moving.

“Nah. I got it.”

And honestly, it’s both a kick in the ribs that your kid doesn’t need you for something like that as well as a source of pride. She’s got this. Your kid’s got this too. How do I know that? A shitty parent wouldn’t have asked me the question you asked me. And certainly not in the way you asked it. We will always worry about our kids. All you have to do is look outside to see that things are not… great. But the path to making things better is to release these kids out into the world. Kids filled with confidence. Kids who have climbed and fallen from trees only to get up and climb them again. Kids who have gotten lost and found their way home. Kids who can navigate public transportation. Kids who can jump the turnstiles. Kids who keep Narcan in their backpacks. Kids have no trouble with their friends’ ever-rotating pronouns. Kids who sit in the back of AI literacy classes telling Claude to suck deez nuts.

And when we do our jobs close-to-right, these kids do not go away. They don’t leave us. They check in. They swing by. They come over for dinner once in a while. Our job is to make sure that when they do they’re always made to feel welcomed, and loved, and safe. But also free to take off again.

Our children owe us nothing. We owe them nothing. Love is not based on debt. If you have raised your child with love, as I’m sure you have, they’ll know you’re there. They’ll come back. Not because it’s a requirement, but because love is a beacon.

And because they can do laundry.

❤️‍🩹

(Feel free to forward this to anyone who’s kid might be moving out soon.)

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