So Long, Son [1991]

Apropos of sending a son off to college…

SO LONG, SON

by Jack Crowther – Rutland Herald – September 8, 1991

So long, son.

Good luck, son.

Take care, son.

I, uh, we . . . we’ll see you soon.

And then the big maroon station wagon with the three college men — yes, I guess that’s the correct term, “men” — backed out the driveway and drove off down the hill.

A senior and two freshmen were on their way to Lake Winnipesaukee for a week of cross-country training before the start of college.

The senior was from the Albany, N.Y. area and the freshmen were from Cleveland, Ohio, and Rutland, Vermont.

It was only a semi-goodbye, since we would be meeting our son at the school in a week, when freshman orientation began. But he wouldn’t be home for a while — maybe not until Thanksigiving.

He had stripped his bed, and I had closed the louver on his baseboard heater — no sense wasting energy this fall on an empty room. I’d better not let the room get too cold, though. His baseball cards might mildew or warp or something, and then he’d disown us.

The rest of his gear is there in his room, packed for college. There’s a lot of it. He was never one to travel light — the only kid I know who always carries masking tape.

It’ll still be his room, even if a lot of his things are gone, but it won’t be the same.

Parents all over the country are mourning or celebrating the departure of their children to college or a year abroad or military service or some other leave-taking. Probably they feel a bit of both emotions.

We mourn the passing of our children’s childhoods, the onset of their independence and their exposure to risks we can’t control. We mourn perhaps the time not spent together, the love not given or the lessons not taught.

But we celebrate the release from day-to-day responsibility, the lower food bills and smaller laundry loads, the sudden appearance of free time.

Mourning or celebrating, we parents are moving on, moving on with fingers crossed or prayers offered. We are moving on with last-minute words of advice, uttered or written, believing that, just maybe, on the 567th offering the advice will sink in.

We think of the departure of children to college as a milestone in the children’s lives, but it is also a parental milestone. When our children leave home, we have, loosely speaking, “raised” them, and that is definitely a turning point.

We know, however, that going off to school is not so final and complete as leaving the nest is for a fledgling. “They keep needing you in different ways,” says my friend Bob of his grown children.

Our children will need us, or so we think, until they catch up to us in experience, and that will never happen. Having made the mistakes that parents make, for example, we think we should stick around to tell them how to be parents. But our children will know all about the mistakes we made, since they have borne the brunt of those mistakes. Our children will make their own mistakes.

In theory, an 18-year-old person can survive on his or her own. Lots of them have done it. But it helps to have someone with gray hair to explain things like the difference between a fixed rate mortgage and a forced air heating system.

One of life’s vexations is that we don’t learn things until we have to, and when we have to learn something we often learn it the hard way. This poses a dilemma as we turn children loose in the world or on the world.

Our children need the freedom to mature, but the immediate risks of exercising that freedom are greater than the immediate risks of staying at home. The tradition of graduating from high school and going off to college forces the issue for many families, as it has for us.

And so, the big maroon station wagon has taken our son off to college by way of Lake Winnipesaukee.

Did he have his toothbrush? Did he have sunscreen? Did he have a sweatshirt? One does not ask a college man these questions in the presence of other college men.

“Don’t eat too much junk food. Don’t drive with someone who’s been drinking. Use good judgment. Wait a half hour after eating before swimming.” One does not embarrass a college man with such instructions in the presence of other college men.

Besides, he knows all those things, right?

Two days later he still hadn’t called.