As the semester nears its halfway point, frosh are not the only ones still adjusting to college life. Parents, too, are coping with the absence of their children.
Parents who have previously sent children to boarding schools or study-abroad programs are in a unique situation in that they have, in some ways, already adjusted to their children being away from home.
“I guess I let go of the micromanagement long before many other parents,” said Susan Scardella, the mother of David Scardella ’07. “If you ask my son, he’d probably tell you I am still too overbearing!”
People with younger children in the home also tend to have milder transitions, if only because the stress of catering to an adolescent’s lifestyle hasn’t been replaced with quiet. For these people, having one less child to shuttle to soccer games and concerts often makes the transition both convenient and bittersweet.
“There’s no empty nest syndrome going on here, not with three boys still at home,” said Francesca Kelly, mother of Annie Kelly ’08, whose family recently moved to Belgium.
“We’re busy unpacking, busy going to our sons’ sports events, busy exploring a new city and country. That keeps me from moping around and missing her too much” Kelly said.
Indeed, many parents with children at home have reported changes in family dynamics. Younger children, sometimes overshadowed amid a large family, are suddenly in the spotlight.
“Having only two children at home, I have a bit more time for each of them,” said Martha Hoverson, the mother of Eddie Bauer ’08. “I find that their roles and relationships have shifted, as my 13-year-old son seems to be ‘stepping up’ to fill his brother’s place and actually getting along better with his 9-year-old sister.”
“I hate to make sweeping generalizations about the genders but in our case this has meant many more sports-related discussions dominating the dinner table,” Kelly said.
Regardless of how far students travel or whether they are the first or last child to leave home, parents agree that their child’s happiness is crucial to their own adjustment. When Jen Schwaner’s son Peter Hill ’08 dismissed his parents with a “Places to go! People to see!” on move-in day before they could help him unpack, she and her husband took no offense.
“My son is very happy. There is a saying that a parent is only as happy as their unhappiest child and I would wholeheartedly agree,” Scardella said. “Because my daughter didn’t like her first college and was homesick, I found the separation harder.”
“He enjoys most of his classes and has already been in a student-directed play,” Hoverson said. “Knowing that he had gotten involved in something he loves so much made it easier for all of us.”
“I worried a lot when he joined a fraternity,” said one anonymous parent. “But he made some very likeable friends and you must know that his roommate freshman year was a peach. He actually looked a lot like that movie star who goes out with Demi Moore!”
And, of course, there’s nothing like Instant Messenger to stay in close contact with a busy college student. Many parents said that because it is so impersonal, it is the perfect way to keep in touch with their children without seeming intrusive or obliging them to interrupt their busy schedules to speak on the phone for long periods of time.
“It’s a medium that works well for us,” Hoverson said. “That feels like the right level of involvement; not too much, not too little! I want to be available but not omnipresent.”
“When I get an e-mail from her, it’s like a Christmas present,” Kelly said. “This is a new part of me, this pathetic, almost-desperate person waiting for an e-mail message, and it’s weird!”
For some parents, empty-nest syndrome means an elevated status for the family pet.
“Our Old English sheepdog is now treated like the only child,” said Rose Hollander, the mother of Ian Hollander ’08. “It’s interesting how he has adopted so many human characteristics.”
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