<p>Our situation was handled quite nicely last year when daughter got a job as a night stocker at a big box. She was working while we where sleeping, and she was sleeping while we were awake. As a result, we had very little drama.</p>
<p>Liyana, that’s beautiful. Thank you so much for your perspective.</p>
<p>Wanna swap places with my son for the next few months?? ;)</p>
<p>Liyana179 - you sound like a great kid. Sounds like you have a gift for balance.</p>
<p>Thanks everyone for all the great tips and advice! For a soon-to-be college freshman, I’ll try to take notice of my mom (and dad) trying to squeeze in any last time with me. I’m not sure if talking has been all that restrained, but I definitely have become a little more distant this year, although not as much as some of you describe (or at least I think haha).</p>
<p>Thanks for the beautiful post, Liyana.</p>
<p>The summer before LFWB went to college lasted 22 days. He suggested a father/son roadtrip from California back to DC. So, he hung with his pals for a couple of days after graduation and then we flew to San Francisco, rented a car and drove to the SS Jerimiah O’Brien in SF harbor and paid homage to the Kings Pointers who sailed on Liberty Ships like her and then headed south and east to the Grand Canyon, Santa Fe, then to the Alamo and then to New Orleans, two months before Katrina, along the Gulf Coast and back to DC. Learned a lot about each other and ate some great food.</p>
<p>He hung out with his friends, and we had a party for his friends, teachers and family and a couple of days later it was off to the Academy with one small suit case and a folder with his appointment. We saw him again in September.</p>
<p>22 days was just about right. Any longer and we all would have gone nuts.</p>
<p>midwesterner, that just hits the nail right on the head. We may not do it conciously, but I think deep down, some of us hope that it’s the easiest way to kind of say goodbye (even if it’s not permanent) to our parents.</p>
<p>I’m finishing up my freshman year and I can say that i experienced absolutely nothing like this. it was just like any other summer, i kept busy (sometimes), had a job, partied, had a car so i was independent, but had anything like what people are taking about here. Maybe your kids grow up too late or something.</p>
<p>I’ll be leaving mid-August and my parents have already started telling me how much they’ll miss me.</p>
<p>I do feel a little sad leaving the country, places, home and atmosphere where I grew up. I will definitely miss my family and also all the friends I made here. I’ve found that in these last few months, I’m trying to spend as much time as possible with my friends - go out, laugh, have fun and enjoy each other’s company. I think that some teenagers - like me - choose to spend more time with their friends because they want to enjoy those carefree moments that they didn’t really appreciate while at school. Most of my friends and I have realized that we may not meet again, and even if we do, we’ll probably be all grown-up by then…our outings won’t have the silly, carefree ‘teenager’ feel they do now. I’m just savouring having no real responsibility, and being surrounded by others like me who are also about to leave. I feel like they know exactly what I’m going through - they’re apprehensive about what awaits them too but excited at the same time. They feel like they’re leaving their youth behind, just like I do. And because we know we have so little time together, we make that much more effort to see each other and enjoy each other’s friendship. </p>
<p>It’s not that I don’t care about my family. I do, very much…and I do spend more time with my parents and brother these days. It’s just that other students can relate to what I’m feeling more than they can. Besides, we’ve got many problems at home right now, and sometimes it’s nice to get away from it all.</p>
<p>Ok…that finally did it…I’m sitting in the family room crying my eyes out. I’ve been trying to be strong but that article did me in…I’m going to miss him so very much. I love being a mom. Now I actually feel better. I know we’re all so happy for our kids to be moving in such a positive direction. We’ve done our jobs. This is a new chapter for all of us. And it will be wonderful if we let it…different but wonderful.</p>
<p>This thread has interested me a lot; I am a senior going off to college in 4 months and i’m just going through the last stretch of high school.
I feel that I really can relate to the article posted by sooz115 earlier, as it seems to describe very much how I have acted over the last year or so. My situation is perhaps slightly different in that I have been at boarding school for the last five years, so the physical ‘leaving’ has already been done in one sense, but going of to boarding school does not entail the ‘emotional’ leaving that will occur when I leave for university.</p>
<p>I find my relationship with my mother very complicated, I have always been a complete ‘mummy’s girl’ and yet I have gone through the typical scenario described by many parents, where I have spent much more time out of the house since getting a car, and have become increasingly vague about where I am going, or often forgetting to inform my mother of my plans. Much of this has been subconscious; I don’t actively intend to leave my mother out, but other parts of my life seem to take priority.</p>
<p>When I am away at school my mother e-mails me every day, and I am fairly sure that she misses me more than I do her. This is not to say I don’t miss her, or that i don’t love getting her e-mails every morning, it’s just that my life seems to be moving so much right now, and so much seems to be happenning that the things that I have had all along slip behind. </p>
<p>My mother won’t moan at me about these things persistently, but I can see her unhappiness with the odd comment. She got very upset the other week when she said that the only communication she got from her daughters (my sister is 21 and has moved out) was a request for money, and she often remarks that it would be nice to hear something from me every now and again. Again, I haven’t chosen to leave her out, but it just seems that as I have grown more independent.</p>
<p>Despite me growing appart from my mother in one way, I still describe her as my best friend and I still enjoy our long chats together on the porch in the evening. I do feel bad for seemingly pushing her away, however I feel this is a phase as much as anything and I know that once I feel happy that I have carved out my own place in the world, I will come back to the closeness we used to have. </p>
<p>I don’t know if I have done a very good job at trying to explain things from the perspective of a teenager who shows all the signs of distancing herself from her mother, however not actively beeing a badly behaved daughter. Maybe writing this has been more helpful for me in trying to understand why have been as I have been and how I should try to approach things. I will try to make sure that as i go travelling over the summer and move off to college, I still remember my mother, something I have been guitly of not doing. I also think that it is important for me to see that still remaining close to her does not diminish my independence, nor does it make me less free or mature, which i think has been the crux of much of what I have been doing over the last few months.</p>
<p>I’m going to be a senior in college now and the one thing I can assure you parents is that just remember that you will always be a part of your sons and daughters’ lives. I am actually no longer friends with any of the people I knew in high school. But I still go home. And I still call me mom every other day and tell her everything that’s going on. I remember spending all that time with my friends and I don’t feel bad about it. I knew then and I know now that I can always count on my parents to be there for me.</p>
<p>I’ve become very independent, living on my own, I have an internship for the summer, and I don’t go home that much, but I still show that I care and I stay connected as much as a possibly can. This is one case in which technology has been amazing. I can still share my experiences visually with my mom and here her voice when I need to.</p>
<p>It’ll be okay :-)</p>
<p>Movie recommendation (I just saw it last night): “Namesake” from India’s Nair, but it’s in English. Bring tissues…
It’s about how two generations process the immigration from India to America. The first generation is a Bengali couple who leaves Calcutta in 1977 for a cold northern U.S. city, he for academic opportunities and she to be a traditional wife. They live in a suburb and have two children.
In the next generation, the young adult children, particularly the mother and her son, go through many arcs of emotions as their American-born son moves into the larger, international world of his college (Yale), new kinds of friends. The back-and-forth between how each processes the changes, and the husband’s and sister’s contribution to their understanding, is beautiful and balanced.
Coping with loneliness as identities change is a theme, for both mother and son, throughout.
It transcends the immigration acculturation story and is truly universal in its
feelings.
Lots of beautiful Indian music throughout.
A good one for ALL to see (even if on separate nights!!) because the perspectives of husband, wife, brother and sister all create a central story.
Family appropriateness for younger siblings: No violence. One romantic bed scene with a girl’s rear end shown momentarily.</p>
<p>Ladylou. Awesome post. My favorite part “remaining close to her does not diminish my independence”. Wow. That is it in a nutshell and you are already aware of this as a senior in H.S. Congrats. This is knowledge that most people don’t really gain until they are 22 or 23 years old. Nice, very nice. :)</p>
<p>I didn’t realize how much my parents felt this way until I read this post. Besides that, honestly I always try to consider my parent’s feelings because they work so hard in raising us. There are times where I think to myself “How would my parents feel if I did this…”. I do things for myself, but I also want to make my parents proud and yes be bragworthy too. With this in mind, I’ve made some great choices in college. I have to admit I do have fun, but at the end of the day I’m always telling my parents how grateful I am and thank them for paying for my tuition. On behalf of the college students, I do feel we take you for granted at times, but I try not to. It was funny because in the beginning my parents were happy that I’m going off to college, but I guess it hit them hard because I usually go out alot and do alot of activities with my friends. (Be careful what you wish for 
)heheh In the end, I’ll usually offer to take them out to lunch my treat and be courtious.</p>
<p>-From a college freshman perspective</p>
<p>Well, we just made arrangements to send our D away for a big chunk of the summer. We were tossing around various ideas for a birthday/graduation present (her birthday and grad day are only a couple weeks apart), and we finally decided to send her to Ireland for a month. My family will be thrilled to see her again, and my dad’s farm in Galway is a place that makes her so happy and relaxed, it will be a good way to center herself before she starts the next great adventure. She’ll have three weeks when she gets home to visit with her friends and get ready for school.</p>
<p>I am feeling emotionally exhausted today…watching #2 child make the final decision on college. I will have a freshman and a sophmore this fall and the thought just knocks the breath out of me.</p>
<p>I just said to my husband this morning that I feel like I am giving “birth” all over again with all the emotional and physical exhaustion.</p>
<p>I am very thankful to this forum for all the support you offer. Unlike the support/understanding one receives with childbirth, many people don’t share/understand the feelings that surface at this juncture in life.</p>
<p>I feel such enormous guilt over being so upset about ZG leaving for college. Two people in her grade, one of whom she knew, have died in the last month. How dare I complain when those parents won’t have their children go off to college at all? But still I cry and worry.</p>
<p>Must be a guy thing, maybe boys have a harder time leaving mommy.</p>
<p>interesting. as a kid going to college next fall, i’m surprised at how well you guys can read us teenagers…
I’m getting nastier towards my parents but mostly because I know that soon I will be completely independent (not paying ANYthing towards my college so yes, completely independent) of them and I kinda resent that I’m not at that point yet! I do love my family but I need a break. And i’m sure they’ll need a break too. :D</p>