Launching a child
Our daughter has left home to head out on her own into the wider world—the point of all this Stoic parent stuff. She's prepared, but it’s still a tough thing to process.
“These are the characteristics of the rational soul: self-awareness, self-examination, and self-determination. It reaps its own harvest. …It succeeds in its own purpose…”
- Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 11.1
Separation. Loneliness. Loss. Emptiness. Anticipation. Excitement. Joy. Accomplishment. These are a few of the many emotions and states of mind that I am experiencing now that my older child has left home for college.
My daughter has been launched into the wider world—the point of all this Stoic parent stuff—and it’s a tough thing to process. It’s not something any book or video or podcast, nor any friend or family member’s description, can really prepare you for. It’s a doozy.
As I reflect on Marcus Aurelius’ quote above, I remind myself of the characteristics of my “rational soul” during these moments of heightened feeling. It’s made more challenging because my daughter is studying very far from home as she begins her college education. She has traveled to a distant campus in a far-off time zone, on her own. Watching her wave goodbye at the airport security line, heading thousands of miles away, was unreal.
In my more rational moments, I am filled with contentment and a cautious excitement for my daughter. There’s also satisfaction derived from the fact that I, along with the rest of our family, have supported her and helped her reach this milestone.
But in my more gut-wrenching periods, I’m nervous for her, and I miss her, feeling a hole where my daughter has been these past 17 years. The lack of her laughter and boisterous conversation that filled our home so often this summer and what seemed like forever before then is palpable. There’s the absence of her joie de vivre over shared meals at the dinner table, and evenings watching movies with our whole family, and sitting on the sofa reading books, and typing away at laptops together, too. It’s like going back in time to when we just had one kid, or even earlier than that, before we had children, since our younger daughter is also an independent, self-reliant high schooler and does many things on her own (as she should!).
Our older daughter grew her appetite for adventure and independence in the past couple years, since post-lockdown re-openings. I saw what it took for her to propel herself forward after the doldrums of the pandemic, to let the light of her intelligence and whimsical humor shine again after hard times. She went to new places for student competitions, practicing traveling to cities without her family. Just a month before her departure, I accompanied her on a challenging backpacking trip through some tough but gorgeous backcountry. Looking back, it was hard, yet we did it. (A reasonable metaphor for separation, too.)
But things have moved much faster than I’d imagined. As she approached college time, she expressed a newfound appreciation of us as her parents. Surprising us just before we took her to the airport, our daughter gave us a card with a congratulatory message about launching a child (her!) into the world. Her handwritten note inside made us tear up. (Also: Who knew that empty-nesting came with its own Hallmark section?) Her decision to go away from home, her perseverance to make it happen, and her expressions of thoughtfulness were all indicators of her own “self-awareness, self-examination, and self-determination,” in Marcus’s words.
We didn’t want to show sadness as we waved goodbye, but it was hard not to cry as we saw her go.
And it made me think of the times I left home for study trips and for college, and waving goodbye to my own parents… and the support they gave me, the encouragement to do well, and to launch. It’s now come full circle.
Thankfully, we have modern communications systems and phones that make them ever-present at our fingertips. We’re in touch. When she called at 2 am to ask a time-sensitive question, I was there to answer. And we are ready for when she reaches out with a difficult challenge, to do our best to give her guidance.
But she’s in charge now. We cannot really solve her problems for her, and we’re thousands of miles away, a heart-wrenching but important step in her self-realization. We know that she’ll ultimately have to take care of herself and advocate for her own needs. We think back over the ways in which we have tried to impart a sense of good judgment and a questioning of impressions, means of assessing the world rationally to transform careless reactions into real wisdom. I believe she knows what to do. Though that does not really stop me from worrying, it does help a great deal.
To build on Marcus’s words, this time is a harvest that we hope our daughter can reap, as she aims to “succeed in her own purposes.”
And for us, her parents, we can cite another ancient philosopher of a very different ancient school, Epicurus. He said:
“Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for.”
We’ve hoped for children who are independent, brave, wise, and adventurous. We will remember that wish even as we send our older child out into a world that we realize is imperfect, with some trepidation. We may wish to keep her close, and yet we know: it is time for her to launch.
We hope we have also taught them the value of living by virtue as well as social oikeiosis. I worry about how independent/autonomous oriented we have all become, with its lonely insistence on personal success. Maybe this next generation can look up and find truth in linking arms to turn the environmental crisis around above all. Moral courage and moral intuition!
Thanks for sharing your experiences. It must be an incredibly difficult situation for any parent to face. I wish you well in adapting, and for your daughter to have good well-being and plenty of prosperity along the way.