Hail and farewell, Henrietta
We just schlepped the Son-ster, and literally almost everything he owns, from Henrietta, NY (a suburb of Rochester in which his alma mater, the Rochester Institute of Technology, is now located), to our home. Next week, we're schlepping him and everything he brought home, plus whatever else he needs from his bedroom and from our records, to Anonymous City, USA, where he'll be studying for his Ph.D. in physics beginning next month. It seems weird, after five years, knowing that, having no particular reason to go there anymore, we'll probably never see Rochester or its environs again.
The Son-ster is going to have some adjustments to make. For openers, he'll be on a semester schedule, instead of the more-sensible academic-quarter schedule (four quarters of 11 weeks each) that's he's been on for the past five years. For closers, he'll be living alone in a regular apartment in a large city, instead of in a bedroom in a suburban house rented to students that was literally across the street from a grain field. (Apparently, the term "suburbs" doesn't necessarily mean the same thing in upstate New York as near New York City--it's quite atypical for a NYC suburban town to include farmland.) Then, too, there's the major detail that he's now going to be a graduate student working part-time as a teaching assistant. He's going to be one busy young man.
We parents are also going to have some adjustments to make. Our son is planning to take his medical records, birth certificate, and anything else that he thinks should have in his possession, now that he's an adult, with him. He's already informed us that we can empty his bedroom and make it into an office officially--he no longer lives with us, he said, and will sleep on the sofabed/convertible couch when he comes home. We'll get used to him being an adult, eventually.
The Son-ster is going to have some adjustments to make. For openers, he'll be on a semester schedule, instead of the more-sensible academic-quarter schedule (four quarters of 11 weeks each) that's he's been on for the past five years. For closers, he'll be living alone in a regular apartment in a large city, instead of in a bedroom in a suburban house rented to students that was literally across the street from a grain field. (Apparently, the term "suburbs" doesn't necessarily mean the same thing in upstate New York as near New York City--it's quite atypical for a NYC suburban town to include farmland.) Then, too, there's the major detail that he's now going to be a graduate student working part-time as a teaching assistant. He's going to be one busy young man.
We parents are also going to have some adjustments to make. Our son is planning to take his medical records, birth certificate, and anything else that he thinks should have in his possession, now that he's an adult, with him. He's already informed us that we can empty his bedroom and make it into an office officially--he no longer lives with us, he said, and will sleep on the sofabed/convertible couch when he comes home. We'll get used to him being an adult, eventually.
posted by Shira Salamone at 2:40 PM
2 Comments:
I used to feel really sorry for my mother that she had to face my metamorphorsis when I left for graduate school--still the driven geek person who sometimes cares too much she brought me up to be, but geeking and caring about things that were (in her words) a complete slap in her face, though they were good things in themselves. Things that both of us would have admired in other people. Haven't gotten to the point of asking her for my birth certificate. Looking at the empty nest syndrome and the trauma it engenders in parents, I really wonder why anyone would *want* to be a parent...and I'm not sure if this is a tongue in cheek comment at all.
Elul, time of new beginnings. Chodesh tov, and shana tova!
Empty nest syndrome comes with the turf--the whole point of raising children is to raise them to become independent adults.
"I really wonder why anyone would *want* to be a parent...and I'm not sure if this is a tongue in cheek comment at all." Give it plenty of time and plenty of thought, and make your own decison.
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