How I coped when my daughter left home
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http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/dec/13/how-i-coped-when-my-daughter-left-home Version 0 of 1. The girl I love most in the world has left me. My cherished only-daughter Scarlett has gone to university … and her chosen college is in New York, which is roughly 3,459 miles away from our house. This means I currently share my home with four males (plus one dog, two cats, two guinea pigs and 10 fish … the tortoises have left home too, no idea where they went … possibly Yale) and makes me a world expert on how to handle that tricky first term when your first child (and reptile) leaves home. I would like to impart my now-extensive wisdom on the subject so that you may learn from my miscalculations and oversights. 1. Don’t forget to have a going away party. I did. It took about a month before Scarlett pointed out that EVERY SINGLE OTHER PERSON IN HER YEAR was celebrated by their family before they left home. Apparently, many of these parties had involved video montages, surprise guests and themed food. I am not usually an unloving person for people to whom I am related, I just hadn’t realised that this type of event was a thing. Turns out it’s a thing. 2. Don’t underestimate the packing. I did. She started about two weeks before she left – and did little else until the day she flew out. It emerged that college packing is actually a complicated and private ritual that involves your teenager privately sorting their child life from their adult life … working out who they are expecting to be by the time they return from their first term away from home, and what their room will need to have in it to embrace that. It’s emotional, it’s cathartic, it involves a lot of saying goodbye to ugly Beanie Babies who have completed their purpose and the creation of private shelves where no parent is ever allowed to go. Ever. 3. Don’t look on the private shelf. Even though you know you can get away with it. Fo real. 4. When you walk into your child’s teeny tiny college bedroom for the first time and see that it contains a bunk bed plus another student, don’t say, “Well, at least you got the top bunk?” Turns out there is nothing in the world as annoying as a parent who is looking on the bright side, especially when the bright side is an unexpected breezeblock wall. There comes a moment in life when you have to start being honest and realistic with your children, rather than buoyant and relentlessly optimistic. The time when you are both staring at the prospect of a year in bunks complete with multiple resident bed bugs is probably that moment. 5. When you get a call a week into term from your daughter on her top bunk telling you that the roommate on the bottom bunk now has a boyfriend, on the bottom bunk … there is very little you can say that will make the situation tangibly better. 6. Don’t gag by mistake when your child successfully assimilates into their new environment. My daughter is now uses the word semester, is considering taking a class in math, and will soon be “home for the holidays” with hair that is 50% purple. All this is good, healthy acclimatisation into her chosen culture despite the fact it hurts a little – though if she colours her hair without the u, I am turning her bedroom into a storage cupboard. 7. Do send care packages – they seem to mean a lot. I spotted an untouched bottle of Ribena in a cupboard and nostalgically remembered it was her favourite so I posted it to her and was almost forgiven for forgetting to have a going away party. I know this because she posted on Twitter that she was pleased … our communication is very modern these days. Though, in hindsight, I should probably have sent a blindfold and earplugs (ref bunkbeds). 8. The first time you visit, don’t take the entire family. I did. We all joined Scarlett for a week at half term – but it proved hard to be the mum she had missed for two months while also being the tour guide to three boys who had never been to New York before. In one day we had breakfast on the Highline, shopped at a Hallowe’en store, discovered The Forbidden Planet bookshop, had lunch at Joe’s Pizza, experienced Barnes & Noble, went ice skating at the Rockefeller Center, visited The Museum of Modern Art, went up the Empire State Building and saw a rehearsal for Saturday Night Live. It wasn’t quite the cosy, snuggling re-bonding time she had wanted, and needed. 9. Don’t be under any illusion that your child is now a fully grown adult. Next week, Scarlett comes home for Christmas and this morning I received this email ... MY DEMANDS FOR HOMECOMING: 1. Everyone must talk about how much they have missed me, how they never stopped thinking about me and how nothing happened the whole time I was away including sleeping or eating or smelling or anything. 2. I would like some Christmas-themed bedding (duvet cover, sheets, pillowcases etc) on my bed and the house to be freshly stocked with Ribena, Heinz minestrone soup and vegetarian Percy Pigs. THEY ARE MY FAVOURITES. If you have some Ribena but no one has drunk it since I left and it’s gone brown, THROW IT AWAY and buy me some more. I need it to be fresh fresh fresh. 3. If I want to stay up late at nights you must stay up with me unless I want to be alone in which case I will tell you to go away because I am a uni gal now and have no time for dilly dallying and trying to be polite. 4. Every time I talk about something like adult literacy rates or French new wave cinema you have to say, “Oh damn, she’s so clever she’s basically a genius.” And every time you dig deeper and realise I don’t actually know that much, you have to STOP and remember how clever I am. 5. NO PRAISING OTHERS, ONLY PRAISING ME. If someone else does something good you must say, “Oh, Jake has done really good A-levels but probably only because Scarly is so amazing.” That is the end of my demands. @emmafreud |