By Rebecca Wilson
Herald Sun, Australia
September 25, 2009
THE quiet tears have been flowing in my house in recent days.
They have been silent because big boys like my beautiful 17-year-old son, Tom, and his 15-year-old brother, Will, don't like it when their mother cries for no apparent reason.
Tom has recently had his last day in a school uniform. He still has presentation nights, exams and final assemblies to attend, but the school routine is done for my first-born son.
Life in our household - and thousands of others across Australia - will never be quite the same.
Will has three school years left, but the changes will still be dramatic as I eye life without one of my babies, without Saturday sport and without the crutch that has been school for 13 years.
Tom is already looking at ways of making himself more independent. He wants to hop in a van with his mates and travel around Australia. He is eyeing off jobs in local pubs to save for the trip. He wants to go to university and he is planning to compete at an Olympics.
While he is plotting a course that is quite appropriately full of everything we want for our kids, I am already missing him.
I hate that there is now only one daily school debrief to look forward to and one son to watch on a footy oval on Saturdays.
I am no different from many parents forced to have a good, long look in the mirror when their kids finish the first formal part of their education.
While many of our children will still be around the house when they move to the next stage of their lives, they are no longer kids. These young adults make their own choices and spend very little time in your space.
The transition to adulthood is almost complete, and that is hugely confronting for parents who have dedicated the best part of their own adulthoods to nurturing children.
My best girlfriend has recently been divorced. It was a traumatic time, but the greatest therapy for her was holding it together for her youngest daughter, who is completing year 12.
She hit the wall in recent weeks when she realised none of her children would really need her next year. They might share the same house but she would not be called upon to wash uniforms, cook breakfast or do the school pick-ups.
She will miss them - the constant parade of kids coming through the house, the dramas that go with having teenage girls and the reliance they have developed upon their mum.
Already she is planning her own sea change. She will work for three months next year in a Cambodian orphanage, so she can have dozens of more needy kids to parent. It is the only way she can see herself not suffering from terrible depression and withdrawal.
Another school mum is facing losing her son to a university in a different city. He has spent 13 years at the same school, a few blocks from home. Tears well in her eyes when she considers next year without him. Even his father is emotional at the thought of seeing his son only when he floats in for the occasional good feed and a wallet refill.
Those parents still in marriages are planning holidays out of school terms for the first time in more than a decade. But many are worried about how life as a couple will go when the kids aren't around to soften tensions.
The cold, hard facts are that many a marriage suffers rocky times when children graduate from school and gradually desert the family home.
There is nowhere to hide for couples who often realise they have very little in common now the juggle and chaos of school life have gone.
AT least two of Tom's mates privately believe their parents won't make the distance once they leave home. The boys just aren't sure if their folks actually like each other any more.
These are confronting times. Our children are generally oblivious to the grieving process many of us are going through but Tom has seen my lips quiver.
He knows I am sad and can't really explain why because he says, simply: "I am still living at home, Mum.''
He is, but so much will change. I will never see him in his school blazer again or trip over his school bag as I come through the front door. I won't see him in his footy jumper or feed any of his teammates after a game.
The smelly school shirts pulled in a crumpled heap out of the bag won't be in the wash and his tie won't hang across the front door knob.
I will never forget the sight of my own mother sobbing uncontrollably as she drove away from dropping me at university in another city away from home for the first time.
The sight of my mother being so completely bereft bewildered me. After all, I was simply doing something she had wanted for me for so long. Now I know.
Tom is almost an adult. He is an exemplary young man who will love what awaits him. But I will miss the child - the one who clung to my hand so tightly on his first day of school and who now towers above me in his school blazer.
His life is now entirely in his own hands and for his mum that is just a little bit sad.
Herald Sun, Australia
September 25, 2009
THE quiet tears have been flowing in my house in recent days.
They have been silent because big boys like my beautiful 17-year-old son, Tom, and his 15-year-old brother, Will, don't like it when their mother cries for no apparent reason.
Tom has recently had his last day in a school uniform. He still has presentation nights, exams and final assemblies to attend, but the school routine is done for my first-born son.
Life in our household - and thousands of others across Australia - will never be quite the same.
Will has three school years left, but the changes will still be dramatic as I eye life without one of my babies, without Saturday sport and without the crutch that has been school for 13 years.
Tom is already looking at ways of making himself more independent. He wants to hop in a van with his mates and travel around Australia. He is eyeing off jobs in local pubs to save for the trip. He wants to go to university and he is planning to compete at an Olympics.
While he is plotting a course that is quite appropriately full of everything we want for our kids, I am already missing him.
I hate that there is now only one daily school debrief to look forward to and one son to watch on a footy oval on Saturdays.
I am no different from many parents forced to have a good, long look in the mirror when their kids finish the first formal part of their education.
While many of our children will still be around the house when they move to the next stage of their lives, they are no longer kids. These young adults make their own choices and spend very little time in your space.
The transition to adulthood is almost complete, and that is hugely confronting for parents who have dedicated the best part of their own adulthoods to nurturing children.
My best girlfriend has recently been divorced. It was a traumatic time, but the greatest therapy for her was holding it together for her youngest daughter, who is completing year 12.
She hit the wall in recent weeks when she realised none of her children would really need her next year. They might share the same house but she would not be called upon to wash uniforms, cook breakfast or do the school pick-ups.
She will miss them - the constant parade of kids coming through the house, the dramas that go with having teenage girls and the reliance they have developed upon their mum.
Already she is planning her own sea change. She will work for three months next year in a Cambodian orphanage, so she can have dozens of more needy kids to parent. It is the only way she can see herself not suffering from terrible depression and withdrawal.
Another school mum is facing losing her son to a university in a different city. He has spent 13 years at the same school, a few blocks from home. Tears well in her eyes when she considers next year without him. Even his father is emotional at the thought of seeing his son only when he floats in for the occasional good feed and a wallet refill.
Those parents still in marriages are planning holidays out of school terms for the first time in more than a decade. But many are worried about how life as a couple will go when the kids aren't around to soften tensions.
The cold, hard facts are that many a marriage suffers rocky times when children graduate from school and gradually desert the family home.
There is nowhere to hide for couples who often realise they have very little in common now the juggle and chaos of school life have gone.
AT least two of Tom's mates privately believe their parents won't make the distance once they leave home. The boys just aren't sure if their folks actually like each other any more.
These are confronting times. Our children are generally oblivious to the grieving process many of us are going through but Tom has seen my lips quiver.
He knows I am sad and can't really explain why because he says, simply: "I am still living at home, Mum.''
He is, but so much will change. I will never see him in his school blazer again or trip over his school bag as I come through the front door. I won't see him in his footy jumper or feed any of his teammates after a game.
The smelly school shirts pulled in a crumpled heap out of the bag won't be in the wash and his tie won't hang across the front door knob.
I will never forget the sight of my own mother sobbing uncontrollably as she drove away from dropping me at university in another city away from home for the first time.
The sight of my mother being so completely bereft bewildered me. After all, I was simply doing something she had wanted for me for so long. Now I know.
Tom is almost an adult. He is an exemplary young man who will love what awaits him. But I will miss the child - the one who clung to my hand so tightly on his first day of school and who now towers above me in his school blazer.
His life is now entirely in his own hands and for his mum that is just a little bit sad.
No comments:
Post a Comment