They Just Got Bigger
Last night we were in a saloon or dance hall in North Chicago with 300 other parents about to graduate their kid from boot camp and it could have been a freshman parent assembly in college or even Kindergarten graduation. We are who we have always been, they just got bigger.
Sarge puts on a great spread for the families coming to graduation, asks for donations and gets the hall donated. He and his wife purchase food and families bring baskets to raffle off. Sarge leads you in the pledge and the National Anthem and all the service branch Veterans are recognized. He might have even used some of the same slides I used for Veterans Day assemblies back when I was principaling.
You sit at tables with other families from your kid’s division and you try to take the edge off of waiting for the kids to graduate the next morning. Sarge gives you tips and tricks to avoid the lines and how to not screw it up once you are on base.
We sat with two families and chatted. They were from Kentucky and Ohio. I had to look at a map to see how far they had driven. The middle is a wasteland for me, not because I don’t love it but living on the west coast (ish—Arizona is coast adjacent) my entire life, you kind of miss what’s in the middle.
Throughout the night entire tables would be missing because their phones were ringing and you had to take the call from your kid verifying you were in town and would be showing up the next day. You get to hear about hte pizza party they are about to have and if you listen close enough you start to hear the worry come in . . . Did you get overnight leave? What about Christmas? Will you be home? Now that this is done parents can breathe and ask about the next thing. It is no different than when we first sent them into the world . . . Did you make a friend? Did you have fun? Did you feel seen? Did you forget about me?
And there it is, the real worry. Did I do well enough for you to make it in the world but so well that you don’t need me anymore? I saw it when I was a kid, my grandmother freaked the fuck out the night before my youngest uncle got married, I remember yelling in the yard and then cars driving away in anger. I remember tears and hurt feelings. I remember none of that showing up the next day at the wedding.
You see it on parenting blogs, they refer to it as soiling the nest. It might be true but I think it is foul (ha!). Whereas it might be true, kids do shitty things to try to push us away and sometimes that makes it easier for them to leave, but guess what? I think it is bull. I think that we don’t know how to gracefully let them grow or say goodbye to the parts of them that they aren’t anymore. In fact, we stop teaching them. We don’t say, this is going to hurt and I want to keep talking about that. We don’t know how to stop loving them and taking care of them so they push and we recoil. It doesn’t have to be like this.
In Sarge’s saloon last night there were 300 parents and siblings, grandparents and aunts and uncles showing up together without the possibility of seeing their kid to commune together. A shared experience that has been tough. Nine to ten weeks without connection that you have had daily for 18 or 25 years or for us the better part of 21 years.
Today we are up early to witness graduation, there will be tears of pride and joy and there will be arguments—over where to go for dinner, who said the wrong thing, who is asking too many questions, who has unmet expectations.
That’s what we do. We stop parenting and learning, teaching and growing. Nothing says that you have to be done at 18 other than the stupid 18 summers marketing people. You get to decide how the next chapter unfolds. You can actually talk about how you want to communicate, feel together, come back from missteps. You can’t wield the power of taking away a phone or putting them on the mushroom (our timeout spot), but better than that you can actually model how to be vulnerable and kind, how to share what you are feeling and to ask for what you need. The world is shifting right there under your feet and it is okay to bend your knees a little and go with it, you don’t actually have to resist.
So, today, whether you are at Navy graduation or if you are dropping off your kid to college, remember it is okay to cry and say you are sad—don’t wait until you are in the car—they need you to go first. It is also okay to be happy and excited, nervous and whatever emotion your crazy little heart spits out—they are feeling it too. We can only connect as much as we are willing to share ourselves. If today is an easy day for you, awesome, that is okay to share as well. We can only do this day by day, together, forward.
The thing is they are the same as they were and so are you. We are all just a bit bigger, older and hopefully wiser.
Go get ‘em!
