We are but temporary guardians for our children. We should reconcile with the fact that after a few years of feeding, educating, loving, and occasionally scolding them, we will have to let them go. Well, we should let them go.
It happened to us. A lot of us don't even live in the same continent as our parents anymore. As a daughter I am rational about this reality. But the same gets turned on its head as a mother.
I went to boarding school when I was 12-years-old. I had joined a few months into the school year and after leaving my luggage at the dorms, we went to the academic block where classes were in session. My class teacher was called to the head master’s office to be introduced to my parents and me. From there it was a quick goodbye and I walked to class with the teacher. I don’t remember crying because I knew there was a room full of new faces I was about to meet. After that I was on my own settling into the new environment, trying to make friends, following some very rigid rules and my parents had no part to play in these struggles. I was on my own. Except for the weekly letter we all wrote during the last period on Fridays, there was no other contact with my family. Certainly no phone calls. My parents wrote to me once a week and I went home to them twice a year for the next four years. At the end of each vacation, my father helped me and my luggage onto a bus in New Delhi. I remember him cheerfully wave goodbye as the bus hurtled away into the foothills of the Himalayas for an eight hour journey to school. He did not hear from me till after the following Friday’s letter reached him. It could easily have been a week to ten days. I have fond memories of that time and remember generally being happy. This is how it was for me as a daughter.
As a mother- our five-year-old son started Kindergarten this year and did not like being in school for six hours every day. For all the freedom it gave me, I did not love the idea of him being unhappy for all those hours. It broke my heart to see him cling to me and cry. When the teacher closed the door to the classroom, I lingered outside for a few minutes to peep into his class through the window and it broke my heart all over again to see him sit there all alone on the rug hunched over and sad.
What is wrong with me?! Over the years my parents dropped me off at boarding school, sent me for overnight trips, sent me to college, said goodbye at the airport after I got married and now I live all the way across on the other side of the world. If they were ever sad, they certainly never expressed it and that made it easier for me to enjoy my independence knowing that no one was pining for me. Even now I call them once in two - three weeks. See them once in three years when I go to India.
Will I be able to give my children as much space as ungrudgingly when they leave home? Even though I know from my experience that this distance away from their parents is what will shape them as individuals?
Blame it on cell phones and other means of constant connectivity, but these days friends and family who send their children to college manage multiple schedules across multiple time zones. The adult child is monitored every step of the way- the choice of subjects, assignments, tests, whether or not the he/she is eating a nutritious meal, their friends, weekend activities. All the information is online and parents find it harder to cut the cord. Generations of parents before us had no choice but to raise independent children.
It's different for us. From the moment they start school we’re in their classrooms, we’re with them on field trips, we walk/ drive them to school much longer than required. For me school was not a shared experience with my parents. When I left home in the morning (walking alone, of course) I did not expect to see my mom or dad walk into my classroom to help groups with reading two hours after I had said goodbye to them. It was bad enough that I had to deal with the trauma of having my parents meet my teachers twice a year. I would not have survived a weekly meeting between them and my teacher!
