So your small person is big, properly big, maybe six feet tall. They’re talking about leaving home during Sunday lunch (this makes you cry a bit but you hide it under your fringe while you’re handing out potatoes) and they are full of chat about fresher’s week and bars, dating and beers. They ask if they’re allowed to take posters and if their for-teenagers credit card will work. (Sure, I like seeing what they buy – I especially like it when I catch him out. ‘Mum, I went to Rymans.’ That’s weird because they must be selling highlighter pens in Chicken Cottage.) They mention bean bags and laundry baskets and which detergent they should use. It all feels like they’re doing it to taunt you because you simply can’t deal with the idea of them leaving home. They’re not, they’re just seriously excited about their upcoming adventure, but this is how it feels.
Of course, when they were little you dreamed of them getting into a great university – you sat next to them helping them (ish) with maths, imagining visiting them at Oxford or Leeds. They were eight then and had just learnt how to divide numbers and you’d stroke their hair and kiss their noses and get them little snacks (all homework is easier with Mini Cheddars, this is a proven fact) and you’d wonder if they would prefer Edinburgh or Manchester.
I bet he/she will like studying classics or maybe they’ll be a bio scientist. I’ll go and visit like my parents did when I was eighteen and we’ll buy them steak and things they can never afford. We’ll go up on the train carrying plants they won’t water and tidy their room and meet their new friends. This is what it’s all about – getting an education so they can be fully fledged grown-ups and their brains can expand, even flourish. What a privilege, what a chance, how fantastic, we thought.
But you see, it was so far away. It was safe to fantasise about graduations and his first boy- or girlfriend and visiting for cream teas and us fake moaning about taking down clean pants and now he’s big and he’s going and I’m going to be frank, I can’t bear it.
What do you mean, you’ll just be back for only some of the holidays? Can you explain again why you wouldn’t just prefer to get a job? You wouldn’t build up so much debt, you could live here (no, I promise you will no longer have a curfew) or why don’t you study in London? There’s a college just round the corner. Yes, just go there. The child (sorry, almost man) mentions something about wanting to be somewhere far away. He says he wants independence (cruel) and wants some space (there’s space here. You have your own room, you don’t share anymore, we fixed the shower – what else do you want?). Regarding space, university digs are tiny. I’m just saying …
I’m no longer interested in him expanding his brain. He seems bright enough. He reads books when I bug him and he has a pretty solid knowledge of socialism and conservatism and knows about the environment. He can keep up in a conversation about Mandela or Shakespeare, he has a solid knowledge of the boxsets on Netflix. What else exactly does he need to know that he can’t discover through discussion and reading?
We all know that what we really learnt at university was how to drink and how to have sex. I’m happy for him to learn both those things while he lives with us, here. He works at Five Guys every holiday and it’s his favourite job, he wants to work in a bar or restaurant, he’s dazzled by the hospitality industry. Why does he need to fill his head with politics and history in order to do well? Why can’t he just stay with me? I know this is selfish and I know he’ll have to leave but I don’t know how I’ll cope. All his life he’s been just right here – at every breakfast, at the weekends, after school, sitting next to me when we watch movies. He’s a good chatter and an excellent sibling. He’s funny, he’s kind and he’s (this is bad, isn’t it?) ours.
But I know the time has come to share him. For him to have a bedroom somewhere else. It’s time for him to work out how to make garlic bread (it’s his favourite) and I suppose it’s time for him to make mistakes. To lose the credit card, to break his phone, to get into trouble with mates for disappearing/drinking too much/flirting with the girl one of them fancies. It’s time for him to deal with bills and shopping and handing in work on time without me reminding him. It’s definitely time for him to live his life. But here’s the thing – when I look at him he’s still four.
He’s still hurtling down a slide or eating a miniature yoghurt or giggling in the bath. He’s still ambling into our bed if he had a bad dream and he’s still trying to cook garlic bread by putting it in the toaster (I can’t even) and he’s still small. He’s the reason we jump out of bed to ask how he slept, he’s the reason we stay up till midnight on a Saturday so that we know he’s back safe from the party. He’s the reason we go to burger places if we eat out and he’s the reason I buy Haribo.
He’s also the real reason my life is as great as it is. I know that’s too much pressure, too much to put on a soul. I know he won’t read this (genuinely) but I can positively say that everything was grey before I had him. I know for many people kids aren’t the answer, and I know I don’t love him more than other people love their children. That’s not what I’m saying. I’m just saying he’s my answer. I don’t know what I was doing before having children but it was very meh, all a bit nothing. He and his brother and sister gave me an anchor, a life, a family and now he’s breaking away. Of course I’ll let him leave and I know he’ll rent a flat with mates and then meet someone and that’s how it has to be. If we do our job properly, we equip them with everything they need and then we let them go. My brain tells me this is right, even my gut. But my heart isn’t having it.
What a time he’ll have. We’ll pack his bags and roll up the posters and remind him at least 100 times to call home (which he won’t) but it will hurt. If you’re reading this and are younger than me, if you think I’ve lost my mind then I get it. I was like you too. There is no moral to this story, there’s no pithy end line for the close.
Jake, if you ever do read this then please know it’s been the greatest privilege of my life to live with you for eighteen years. Please call me occasionally and know that this is your home, it always will be. Please don’t lose your credit card, be great to your friends and even greater to your partner. I love you.