@Hoggirl My biggest concerns are missing her and not being able to see her easily, the inconvenience of dealing with flying and the hassles involved with getting to and from school. The main concern is having her so far. I think she’ll be just fine, but it’s me I worry about, lol. She’s only 16 now, so no doubt I will feel differently when the time comes. This is one of those situations where intellectually you know that it’s important to let them go, but emotionally it’s hard.
Yes, it’s definitely bittersweet to raise our young people to be strong and independent. If we do our jobs right, they will venture forth in the world and we will be left to deal with missing them. It IS helpful if there is a good airport with lots of connections near wherever they end up, but somehow everyone manages even if they have to deal with schools in more rural locations, you’ll see. With all the new means of communications there are which didn’t exist when we went off to college decades ago, it’s far easier to keep in touch these days than ever before!
“So…just because a kid goes far away to college doesn’t mean they will live far away. Just because they live close in college doesn’t mean they will live close when they graduate.” - Very true. But… the odds are that they are likely to have the best job opportunities near the college location. So you need to be ready for that.
Actually for Us that have a national presence, they often attract national recruiters (including the fed govt), so you can’t know where the student will end up. Our S went to career fairs from early in his freshman year and met folks from all over the US who were recruiting on his campus. In his SR year, he received 3 job offers–2 in HI and one in DC. He accepted the one in DC, with our blessing and is very happy there.