Tomorrow, I’ll be driving my mom and MY SON to the airport. They are going to Texas for my cousins graduation.
I’m quite nervous at the moment. I really don’t want him to go, but I have no good reason not to let him go. I trust my mom. He wants to go. I don’t ever want to deprive my children from experiencing new things in life just because I’m afraid to let them out of my sight. I swore I would never do that to my children.
He’s never been on a plane before and I wanted to be with him the first time he did. I wanted to be there to see his face when the plane took off, so we could talk about it for years to come. I’m sentimental like that. Still, not a good reason to tell him he can’t go.
I wrote him a letter to read while he’s on the plane, just so he knows I’m thinking of him and I love him. I cried the entire time I wrote it.
And he’s only going to be gone until Sunday.
Now I’m sitting here thinking “how the hell do parents deal with it when their kids leave home to go to college??????” I don’t even want to think about it. Him leaving for the weekend is hard enough!
Ugh.
Awww, you’re such a good mom, Yvonne. He’ll be fine, you’ll be fine, and you’ll still talk about his first trip away from home on an airplane for years to come.
I do know what you mean, though – I put my kids on a plane with my sister from Oklahoma to Oregon when Roger and I drove the moving truck out here. Toughest thing I’ve done yet.
Aww … hey, maybe they’ll give him little plastic wings for his first flight! (Do they still do that?)
You’re an awesome mom. 🙂
I think you’ve just inadvertently hit on the reason why kids are asshats throughout their teenage years….it makes the whole leaving-for-college thing infinitely easier on the parents. By then, mom and dad are probably like, “fucking GO already!” It’s Mother Nature’s form of aversion therapy.
Having been through these transistions with a couple of kids I can say that it is never easy to see them go away but it is our job as parents to teach them the skills they need to leave when the time comes.
We always let our kids order their own meals in restaurants, pay for items and get change, do their laundry, balance their checkbooks, get up by an alarm clock…the list is endless. That way when it was time for them to fly the coop they were ready even if dad wasn’t. We gave them the skills to survive and then trusted them.
One son is now in Phoenix, AZ, 2000 miles away and I miss my best friend but he is successful and that is all a parent can do. I look at life as a relay race. As a parent I got him as far down the track as I could and then handed off the baton. He’s in the race for himself now.
Finally, just think about how much fun its going to be to see your son get off that plane when he comes home. By letting him make this trip you have gotten him a little further down the track and a little closer to manhood and independence. Its what good moms do.
Don’t worry…Texas isn’t that bad. ;o) I promise, we won’t corrupt him while he’s away.
Seriously, what a good mom you are to not hold him back even though you are feeling like you’d want him to stay. You’re giving him more than you realize you are…
When you have it figured out how parents deal, let me know because Wendy has the same problem with the child….thing is, he is like, 14 already, almost 15. Like dude, seriously, he’s not five anymore! lol