Half Nesters
Photo by Mateusz Stępień on Unsplash
A few weeks ago, August 26 to be exact, we dropped my oldest son off at college—a milestone perhaps as momentous for parents as it is for the ascending freshman, an indelible mark in the passage of time, a step closer to retirement, hair loss, grandchildren, senior living communities.
Eight hours of travel time and three time zones now separate us, leaving us as what I call “half nesters.” The baby we held in our arms has become a full-blown man whom I needed to stand on my tip toes to hug when we left for the airport. In three short years, we will be proper empty nesters, with our youngest hurtling toward his own graduation and college adventure at a rate that seems continuously to accelerate.
Of course, in this day and age, we can stay connected digitally with our children in myriad ways that didn’t even exist when I left for college. Text messages, FaceTimes, live streams of concerts and athletic events all afford us the chance to stay connected. Yet, these are also a constant temptation. We have to force ourselves not to lurk through our cameras. To resist the comfort of the digital connection that is always within reach of our phones. Let him have his independence, I keep telling myself—arguably the entire point of the four-year college experience.
In 1988, my freshman year, I might as well have been on a desert island. The connection to my parents was limited to weekly voicemails left “after the beep” on a tiny cassette tape within a dusty answering machine. Once a month, out of guilt, I would call back, in an immediate haste to hang up. I was barely heard from until Thanksgiving. My parents’ generation was even more detached, limited mostly to written letters on actual paper, delivered by a tired mule or carrier pigeon, I imagine.
Today, transitioning our children to the responsibility and independence of adulthood requires deliberate intent, cutting of the digital cord. My son has peers who video conference with their parents a half dozen times a day. FaceTime, Zoom, and Facebook Portal enable an always-on connection, as if the child is still in the next room. Amazon Prime delivers any want or need to their dorm room overnight. WhatsApp, SnapChat, and Instagram all stand ready to convey the latest thought or image, question or concern. All of it enabling parent-child co-dependence indefinitely—as we knock down obstacles for them, solve their problems, stunt their maturation.
But I get it. Now as a half nester, when I sit in my son’s empty room, I definitely get it. I see the tassel dangling from a lamp, the sports awards pegged to the wall. Stuffed animals piled on a bed, too childish to offer comfort yet too sentimental to be thrown away. Books stacked on shelves, about subjects never to be studied again. Posters for sporting events, concerts, and vacation destinations that bring back a flood of memories. Drawers still full of shirts I’ve seen him wear hundreds of times—too small or worn to make the packing list. Articles of clothing just waiting for the nostalgia to fade enough for us to take them to Goodwill. What to do with pictures of friends and teammates, toys, trinkets, and trophies, mementos and memorabilia—all of it left untouched, as if he were about to bound through the door from school, from practice, from a party. Preserved like an exhibit at a museum for that eventual Thanksgiving visit, for Christmas, for next summer.
As our children dive head first into the academic and social adventure that is college, we parents grapple with these ubiquitous reminders of their absence. Like a phantom limb your brain insists is still connected. Triggers for a tangled basket of mixed emotions—so proud of them, yet part of us still wanting to keep them as a child forever. Fret over course loads, homework, and fraternity parties. Intervene in roommate disputes, class selection, and messy breakups. Encourage them to have fun, but not too much fun. Wanting them to know you’re there for them, but not hovering. A compulsion to call, to text, that is hard to resist. The inverse of home sickness. Away fever.
As digital natives, our kids are, in many ways, better equipped and more disciplined at setting communication boundaries than we are. Like the unplayed messages on my freshman year answering machine, the text messages will wait longer for a response, the photos will remain unliked, the video calls will be sent to voicemail—not because they don’t love us, but because they have their own lives to live. Inching further and further away as they find their sea legs, gain confidence, become independent. Ultimately, that, as parents, is what we want—happy, healthy, well-adjusted young adults.
Hard as it is, our job is to let them go.