It’s only after you leave home that you really start to appreciate everything your parents did for you. It’s never too late to tell them.
MARK A., AGE 23
When you reach that senior year in high school, you are feeling pretty secure. You’ve got the high-schoolstudying thing down pat (which doesn’t necessarily mean that you are studying; it may mean that you know how to get by without studying). You’ve mastered the art of making friends (and knowing what kind of people you should avoid) on campus.
By the spring semester of your senior year, you are even learning how to communicate with your parents and understand them. Well, “understanding” may be a bit of a stretch; let’s just accept the fact that you are communicating with them much better than you did a couple of years before. Your life has a nice, tranquil feel to it.
Then, in less time than it takes to unzip your rented graduation robe, there will be some drastic changes. Not everything changes. Some things stay the same. If you’re going to college, you’ll still have to contend with studying (and your college classes may be very similar to your old high-school classes; even those desk-and-chair combos are the same size). And making friends and avoiding enemies isn’t going to be all that much different either.
The dramatic changes in your life are going to happen in your home. Oh, your mom and dad will still be your parents, and your brothers and sisters will still be your siblings, but the dynamics of your relationships will change, and they will never, ever go back to the way they were before.
Your parents have survived your progression from diapers to diploma. During that time it was you who made most of the changes. Now, all of a sudden, it’s your parents who will have to make the most dramatic adjustments. Sure, you will continue to change a little bit at a time as you make the transition into adulthood, but your parents will have to go through a major role change. They have spent almost two decades as “hands-on managers.” After your graduation from high school, their positions will change drastically to that of “outside consultants.”
Your Perspective
When you begin life out on your own, whether as a college student or as a working adult, you will be leading a relatively independent life.
• You will expect that rules be replaced by your own emphasis on personal responsibility.
• You will view freedom as a necessary component of your maturing process.
• You will consider that your personal independence overshadows any vestiges of obligation or accountability to your parents.
• You will resent continued intrusion and meddling in your life by your parents.
These are all natural, reasonable feelings on your part. But they are completely opposite from your parents’ perspective.
Your Parents’ Perspective
You might think of yourself as an adult, but your parents have all those memories of you being a goofy, irresponsible kid. When you start to assert your independence and take offense when they impose restrictions, you’re likely to hear comments such as these:
• “You are still just a kid.”
• “Is this the thanks we get for all our slaving and sacrifice?”
• And the infamous “As long as you are living in our house, you’ll play by our rules.”
These are all natural, reasonable and understandable feelings for your parents to have. (Remember, they heard the same things from their parents. It is kind of a 30-year déjà vu thing.)
Patience Required
Particularly if you are the oldest child, your parents are going to be struggling to learn their new roles in life. They are no longer wardens or even coaches. When you are out and on your own, they are sort of like concierges—they are standing by, anxious to help and advise you, but only if you come to them with questions.
You can help your parents through this difficult transition if you are sensitive to the transformation they must make.
• They’re learning to check in with you instead of checking up on you. They will be curious about what is going on in your life. Give them the benefit of the doubt. Assume that their inquiries are made from their heartfelt curiosity and are not intended to be judgmental.
• They’re learning to listen instead of lecture. For 18 years or so, they were doing the talking, and you were (supposed to be) doing the listening. But after you graduate from high school, they must flip-flop and suddenly be quick to listen and slow to speak. They are anxious to develop an adult-to-adult relationship with you that fosters communication.
• They’re learning to give advice only when asked. Your parents don’t want you to make the same mistakes that they made, so they are anxious to bless you with their sage wisdom and knowledge. But be patient. Sooner or later they will learn that you will be much more receptive to their advice when you decide to ask for it. (Periodically, just for the fun of it, ask your parents a “What do you think I should do?” question. They will feel so fulfilled.)
• They’re learning to ask questions for the sake of praying, not for prying. All of the sudden your parents have to abandon the litany of the “who, what, when” cross-examination techniques they developed when you were in high school. They know they are more likely to get information out of you now if they phrase their questions in a more generic form, such as, “How should we pray for you?”
• They’re learning to let you live under their roof but not under their thumb. If you are living away from home, the hardest adjustment will be on those weekends, holidays and vacations when you return home. Your parents will have memories and recollections of the rules that were in place during high school, but you will be living in a relatively unrestricted environment. Maybe your parents won’t feel the need to impose the old “rules of the house” if you are quick to display courtesy and respect by letting them know what you will be doing and where you will be going.
Your parents’ love for you won’t diminish when you become an adult and leave home, but the way in which they interact with you will be drastically different. There is a delicate art to this transition: mothering without monitoring, loving without leading and interacting without intruding. Your parents understand the distinctions, but it may take them a while to make the transformation. Give them a little slack.
Despite all of the jokes about gaining an extra bedroom, your parents are going to be sad when you leave home. After all, they stuck by you when you were going through those rebellious, snotty teenage years. Now, just when you’re becoming an adult and your parents are enjoying your friendship at that level, you’re moving out. How rude!
It will be hard on your parents because they will feel as if they were losing a friend. They will feel out of the loop because they don’t know what is going on in your life. But you can solve that problem with these four simple suggestions:
1. Get a digital camera. Take pictures of your new friends and your activities and e-mail them to your parents. Hey, you’re parents may even pay for the camera as an incentive to get the pictures.
2. Send them a copy of your college newspaper. You won’t read everything in the paper, but your parents will. They will be able to live your college life vicariously through each issue.
3. Send them a copy of your class schedule. You don’t have a difficult time getting a mental picture of where your parents are because you are totally familiar with their jobs and their schedules. But if you are away at college, they won’t know anything about your daily schedule unless you tell them.
4. Invite them to come and visit you. They could go overboard with this, so you will have to use caution. If you leave for your freshman year of college on September 1, they’ll be ready to come for a visit by September 6. We think this is a little too soon (and we know that you’ll think it is way too soon). But by the end of October, you will be ready, and your parents will be eager to visit. By then you will have made some friends, and you’re parents probably won’t deny your request to take you all out to dinner at a nice restaurant.
If you’re living in an apartment or a dorm in your hometown, the same rule applies. They will be glad to spend time with you and your friends because they will be interested in getting an update on what’s happening in your life.
Your parents will want to stay involved in your life, and they’ll want to help out and do nice things for you. (Absence makes the heart grow fonder, and all that mush.) But your parents may need a few suggestions of what they can send you. So you don’t get stuck with a lot of stuff that you don’t want (like socks and vitamins), give them ideas of what you do want:
• Your hometown newspaper. Tell your parents that you don’t care if the city council approves the zoning for the waste disposal plant, but you do care about your favorite high school teams and activities.
• Your magazine subscriptions. Perhaps your parents won’t notice that the postage to send them to you is more than the full cover price of the magazines.
• Packages filled with goodies. Here you may want to specify that your definition of “goodies” includes Oreos and M&Ms but excludes socks and vitamins.
A son who was away at college wrote this cryptic e-mail message to his father in the hope that he would get a little spending money:
The father’s prompt reply was equally succinct:
If you’re going to ask for money, don’t be as crass and blatant as the son in this frequently told story. At least disguise your request by telling your folks a little about what is happening in your life.
As tough as it will be for your parents when you leave home, it could be worse on any younger brothers or sisters whom you leave behind. You have been their big brother or big sister for their entire lives. They have looked up to you (figuratively and literally). Oh, sure, they might have acted like little pests for a while, but that is only because they were trying to get your attention.
Don’t forget to be considerate about the feelings of your younger siblings when you go away to college or move out on your own. They may possibly feel forgotten or unloved. After all, your parents will be making quite a fuss over you. You will be getting all of the attention; you are the one who is taking the extra television set. It’s all you, you, you.
With a little planning, you can make the transition a little less painful for your younger siblings. Take the time to do these things:
• Send them e-mails on a regular basis.
• If you’re away at college, send them a shirt or cap with your college logo.
• Come home for their birthdays.
• Invite them to stay with you for a day or two.
A little kindness now could reap big dividends in the future. Sixty years from now you’ll be glad that you have younger siblings. Maybe they will come to visit you in the nursing home.
Sooner or later, after you have been away for several months, you will return home for the first time. Maybe it will be over the Thanksgiving holiday. Maybe it will be for Christmas vacation. Whenever that first time arrives, as you walk through the door of your house, it will be like stepping into Bizarre-O-World.
It won’t seem strange at first. There will be the typical greeting rituals. Your mom will kiss you, your dad will hug you, your dog will sniff you, and your little brother will sniff you, too. Then you will throw your trash bag full of dirty clothes into the laundry room and move to your room to make a few phone calls to friends you haven’t seen for a while.
There! Right at that point, you notice a funny look on your parents’ faces. But in ignorant bliss, you make the calls. Another contorted expression appears on their faces when you tell them that you are going out to dinner with your friends. Your mother starts whimpering like an injured squirrel. You think to yourself, Do they really think that I’m going to spend all of my free time with them? Well, we’re here to tell you, “Yes, they do!”
Once you realize that you and your parents have opposite expectations, it will be easier for you to negotiate a treaty for peaceful coexistence.
Stepping Back in Time
When you lived at home in the “old days,” before you moved away, you were still living under the house rules imposed on you by your parents. One of the reasons you left home may have been to get away from some of those rules. And whether you objected to the rules or not, you won’t be living under anything close to the same rules in a college dorm or in your own apartment.
But your parents still remember those rules, and they still consider them to apply to you when you’re back home (even if the visit is for a few days). And they will just assume that you remember all of the rules, so they won’t review them with you ahead of time.
Avoiding Inevitable Conflicts
When you are back home, you will do everyone a favor if you go overboard in sharing your plans with your parents. Let them know where you are going and who will be with you. If you go out for a night of activities, tell them when you plan to be home. Let them know whether you plan to eat at home with the family or whether you will have dinner with someone else. We know this may seem a bit extreme, but when you think about it, this is all a matter of courteous communication.
Moving out on your own is one of the fun aspects about becoming an adult. Another feature of adulthood, less fun at times, is working a job. In the next chapter, we will look at the wonderful world of work that awaits you.