<p>I remember being dropped off and my parents buying me some groceries and then they left. I had never explored the town or campus or anything. I had $100 cash with me, so I hopped on my bike and headed off in the direction of the downtown and opened my very first checking account at the first bank I came upon on my bike. I remember taking care of all my financial aid and billing on my own and became very self sufficient. I doubt my parents cried at all but years later I heard that my younger sister was distraught and cried about our family “falling apart” now that I had left. This was the same little sister that I had spent the previous 16 years in a constant argument.</p>
<p>AZKMom, that’s a cool story. It’s clear that, even then, your parents knew you were self sufficient. I sometimes wonder (worry? think?) that many of us have coddled our children a little too much, to the point where many of them don’t know how to do the fundamental stuff that is required for living on their own (laundry, making a grilled cheese, banking, cleaning the toilet.) I am as guilty as anyone, though I have tried to make up for lost time in the last year. :)</p>
<p>NMR…don’t worry…once on their own…they will learn fast. :D</p>
<p>My wonderful old grandma loved various sayings, including “Necessity is the mother of invention.” (Her second favorite was “Self praise stinks.” :))</p>
<p>I don’t recall either of my parents (nor I) having a moment of sadness or trepidation about me leaving for college my freshman year. I think their attitude was “Ok, this is the point in your life where this is supposed to happen, now go off and do.” Maybe it was that my roommate was 1 of my best friends from high school, maybe it was that I was only 3 1/2 hours away and snuck my car onto campus registered under an upper classman’s name or maybe it was that we were all accustomed to me going off and being independent from a very early age (my parents sent me to overnight camp for 8 weeks when I was 6, at my insistence - I wanted to be with a couple of older cousins). When, after my freshman year, I decided to transfer to a school up in Boston, 6 1/2 hours away, I simply packed the trunk of my car (can you imagine moving your kids in today with only what will fit in the trunk) and drove myself up. They didn’t even see my new school in advance and simply let me make the decision to transfer on my own. (In fact, the first time they saw my 2nd school was on parents weekend when they drove up to my 4 story dorm just in time to observe me rappelling from the roof down the face of the building to the ground. Don’t ask me why I was doing it, it just seemed like a cool thing to do at the time. My mother tells me that was the first time she started to cry about me being away at school, when she realized her supposed bright, independent son was really an idiot in need of close supervision. 
)</p>
<p>I think that we, as a generation of parents, tend to be more involved in the day to day lives of our kids, who are in many ways more dependent on us in daily life activities than we were on our parents. Transportation, funding of after school activities are more parent dependent today than when we were growing up. Also, in a world which has become more complicated on many levels, we may feel a need to be involved in more minutia than our parents did. And to boot, our kids’ focus on MT and other performing arts almost compels more involvement whether it be transportation to classes, rehearsals, shows and competitions, serving as parent chaperones on road trips to various events, working back stage helping with costume changes, helping with fundraising. All of this, I think, makes the separation more difficult for us than it was for our parents.</p>
<p>For me, it was easier than for many of those who have posted in large measure, no doubt, because both my kids go to school and live within 35 minutes of my house. My daughter is only a couple of blocks from my office. The proximity obviously makes it so much easier to see them. At the same time, it creates a risk, about which I must be ever vigilante, that I won’t give them the space they need to be the independent young adults they need to be at this point in their lives. There are times when I have to remind myself to treat them as if they are 6 hours away, not only in terms of not intruding into their lives but also in terms of not making myself available to assist in daily life issues. Notwithstanding this, I do find myself getting antsy if I haven’t seen one of them for even a week or if I don’t speak to them both a couple of times a week! It is also with much ambivalence that I look at their empty quiet bedrooms and realize that for all practical purposes, assuming they are successful in employment after school, they have moved out of our home and will never again live here. Now that really gives me a moment of pause at times!</p>
<p>Michael, agree with all you say. For me, my kid had no difficulty leaving home. I also was never worried about them leaving or how they’d fare. It was mostly my own feelings of having to get used to it on my own end. It may just be their personalities (eagerness to be off on their own, never homesick) or perhaps the fact that they, like me, went away every summer to overnight camps or programs and so college was not the first time they had left home. Leaving for college is way bigger in that it is more of a permanent leave (I doubt they will ever live home again). But being away from mom and dad was not a new experience for them. Like you, I went to overnight camp for 8 weeks every summer (ten years!). My kids have gone away for 6 weeks for about 8 summers each as well prior to college. </p>
<p>PS…where did you go to camp? I went to Pine Forest Camp.</p>
<p>I went to college about 4 hours away, first one year to a junior college in one town and the rest to a university in another town. My parents were at my schools twice: the first day and the last day. They helped move me into the junior college and they came to graduation from the university. They sent my brother to pick me up at the end of the first year because I did not have a car there and my hometown friend had dropped out to get married. I did everything else on my own and it was expected (by myself and them) that it be that way. We had a great relationship, but the level of parental involvement back then was minimal for all of us back then. I remember standing in the parking lot watching them drive away that first day and very briefly being a little misty-eyed, but I got over it before anyone saw! </p>
<p>Fast forward a few decades…I have helped my D move in all 3 years at her school. It takes both our little cars to contain all her stuff. I have made the 4-hour trip to visit her at least once each semester and sometimes twice to see performances. Usually while she is organizing her room, I will walk over to the admin building and pay her tuition bill just to have something to do, and I handle all her financial aid matters (FAFSA, etc) because that affects MY pocketbook. BTW, she ASKS me to help her move to school. I am glad to help, but it does require me to take a couple of vacation days from work and to make sure her younger brother is supervised while I am gone overnight. My role may be replaced this year by this new boyfriend of hers, but we’ll wait and see! ;)</p>
<p>I must clarify that I am a little bit hoping this boyfried does help her move as it requires heavy lifting and many trips up and down stairs in 100±degree weather! :D</p>
<p>soozie, it was much the same with us. Our kids were more than ready to move out and I too felt they were ready. Like you, I needed to reconcile my feelings about it. I often said to my wife that at various stages of our kids’ lives I could see them “turning a corner”, transitioning to the next phase of their lives. I saw it with our daughter the summer of 2005 when as a result of her experience at UArts summer MT program she entered her junior year with the singular goal of gaining admission to a BFA program and pursuing a career in MT and in the summer of 2006 when she returned from living away at Syracuse’s 6 week program a person clearly ready to move out and live on her own at college. I’m watching it with my son now as he prepares to graduate from college and has shifted his thinking and priorities to gaining admission to law school and assuming the responsibilities of the professional work world. He is not the same person today as he was 6 months ago; his perception of his life, his goals and the role he plays in all of that have changed markedly from the “college student” phase of his life. And with that comes the need for me to redefine myself in my role as a parent and as a spouse as my kids achieve independence for themselves and I achieve independence from them .</p>
<p>The first overnight camp I went to was Penn Valley at age 6. Then at age 9 I went to Camp Olympia. By 13 I was working every summer but didn’t quite abandon camps - my first jobs were as jr. counselor at an area day camp at which I later became the head of the boating program at 16. (That was an interesting experience. Among other duties, I led overnight trips down the Delaware River; on land, the adult counselors were in charge but on the river they were required to follow my instructions. It was delicious as a 16 year old teenager to have the knowledge, experience and authority to tell the adults, all of whom were school teachers, what to do. 
).</p>
<p>Musicmom, I loved your “fast forward” contrast. When we moved our daughter into her 2 person dorm room last year, we had 3 car loads of stuff, yup, 3! Granted her dorm was apartment style living so that she needed to stock and supply a kitchen, but 3 car loads!!??!! I kept teasing her that it was due to all of her shoes to which she would respond that, no, it was due to the fact that she was permanently moving out and needed to take everything she owned. The best was when in mid-April I moved her out of her dorm into an apartment she was sharing with another UArts student. The other student’s parents, who live only 2 hours away, not only never came up to see the apartment but decided to take a vacation starting with the weekend the girls were moving and did nothing to assist in the move. I rented a van to move the girls and it took 3 trips with the van to move 2 girls out of their respective 2 person dorm rooms. Their dorm rooms were the dorm room equivalent of a “clown car”, I couldn’t believe the amount of stuff. A far cry different from what I had in my dorm room or even what I took with me when I moved out of my parents home for good. No way they could have done it without my involvement. All I kept thinking was whether this was my answer to the questions of existential angst posed by Victor Frankel in his book “Man’s Search for Meaning”!!!</p>
<p>I have a son who is preparing to go away to college. He just rolls his eyes when I suggest that we take a look at those packing lists I’ve found on CC and Facebook, and in the Target and BBB brochures. I think he’d just take the comforter off his bed, a beach towel, and (maybe) some toiletries, and that would be it. I fully expect to shop and over pack FOR him; even with that, I’ll bet we can fit it all in the back seat.</p>
<p>letsfigureitout, that’s EXACTLY how my son (and oldest) was when he went off to college in the fall of 02. I had a lot of eye rolling, too. Drove me crazy! He’s still that way to this day…very practical and almost minimalist. He eventually went various places for whole semesters at a time with only 2 suitcases and a carry-on, and still had room to spare for souvenirs to eventually bring back home! My girls, however, are very different lol.</p>
<p>I hate to say it, and it betrays my fine liberal arts education , but there really seems to be a major gender based difference between sons and daughters with the college packing and move in experience. My son, 1 duffel bag could sustain him for months. My daughter, like I posted before, 3 car loads. Yikes!</p>
<p>Well my son will be the exception to the norm. He likes clothes and shoes. We also are trying to convince him to only bring one of his guitars and trying to convince him that there may not be enough room for that and his amp. I’m already planning to ship some of his clothes ahead of time to our hotel as we will need to fit five people in the van, our clothes/stuff for 6 days and his dorm stuff. We do not have a hitch on our van so will have to stuff it on top and inside. I’ve already joked about us looking like the Beverly Hillbillies when we pull in to town. We are planning on making a stop in Cleveland at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame/Museum on our trek east, I hope we have room for souvenirs!!</p>
<p>MNK and all, yep. D four years ago was running back and forth between Container store and Bed Bath and Beyond. We still managed with just what was in the trunk (we had a 1000 mile drive) but the enthusiasm! </p>
<p>Four years later, S rolls his eyes, BIG TIME, when I even mention either store… </p>
<p>We have to fly to NYC, so it will be the backpack, two suitcases, and I’m going to mail a box… His question: what do I need two suitcases for?</p>
<p>It’s that old swinging pendulum… my sisters went to college with a trunk and a suitcase. I went with a backpack, sleeping bag and my mom mailed a box of linen… I was a child of the late 60’s… my sisters of the early 60’s…</p>
<p>Wow! I am really showing my age…</p>
<p>PS what packing list on CC?</p>
<p>Go to the Parent Cafe and there is a thread about what to buy/where to buy it/sales/what to pack and stuff. I think it’s usually the first thread under Parent Cafe.</p>
<p>I’ve had company today so I didn’t get a chance to check the uarts updates. I must say it took me by surprise that we went from the anxiety of room assignments to the heart of our panic - we aren’t in control anymore…I’m the mother of four, which I had within 7 years so my life has always been my kids.
My house was the “Kool Aid” house, all the neighborhood kids always knew the door was always open for them. As a matter of fact it still is, as a few who are in the service still come for a snack when they come home on leave. I was a teacher and my kids pre-school; team mom simultaneously for both my eldest and youngest sons in football. My kids call me “Marie” as in Everybody Loves Raymond’s Marie - I actually think they’re right. When my eldest son left for a University a few hours from home it was hard but I got through it. Seeing him once a month or so makes it bearable. My second child, a daughter has always been the adventurer, getting on a plane at 14 to go 1500 miles away to girls rock n roll camp in Seattle, or to Costa Rica for a summer program two years later she was bearable because I knew her nature, it what she needed. She left for college in Boston and even though we speak at least two or three times a week I’m o.k. Now for my third, my UARTS student, not an hour goes by when she’s not singing, she walks in the door humming, sits at the piano playing or watching a musical eating popcorn. Her presence is all around my house - why am I so scared of the upcoming silence? I thought “I’ve been through this twice before and did o.k.”, why am I finding myself laying awake at night thinking about how am I going to handle being alone? I still have my youngest for a couple of years. Why can’t I stand to watch our home movies, my little buddies are gone, forever. One event I’ll never forget was a particularly tough outing to the supermarket when they were all under 6 and acting up loudly I thought “I can’t do this anymore, I don’t have the strength”, an older women who must have been in her late fifties softly said “you don’t realize this is the best time of your life”. I thought, " yeah sure, you don’t have to unpack groceries and play referee while doing it". Dad has always worked long hours, sometimes away days at a time, but that was alright because I liked being needed even though I’d complain I was overworked. I guess what I’m trying to express is that even though we all have different lives, what we have in common is loving our children more than we’ve loved ourselves. Now the time has come to bravely give them the push out into the world, hoping they’ll achieve what the need to be happy. We now become our parents, I realized that the other day when I opened the envelope with my new AARP card. It will be alright.</p>
<p>While I am VERY close with my MT daughter (we do everything together, practically, when she’s home and her boyfriend isn’t around), I did not shed ONE TEAR when she went to NYU. It had been her dream school since she was 12, and I guess I was just so happy that she was fortunate enough to get in and start living her dream, I wasn’t sad at all. Of course, she’s only 1 3/4 hours away, and I see her about once a month, but I still thought I’d lose it when she left. I also kept saying to myself: “her room will not look like Hiroshima after the bomb anymore”… and I took great comfort in that!</p>
<p>Can someone tell me where to find the Parents Cafe? Sorry for what might be a silly question!</p>