San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
LEAVING THE NEST? NOT SO FAST
The silver lining of a kid forced to stay home for college
Parents often think ahead to their children’s high school graduation as the ultimate bookend to their lives together as a family unit. That was true for me: When my older daughter, Dahlia, entered eighth grade, I started counting down the years she would continue to live under our roof. It was like that moment around age 30 when many people’s mortality finally hits them; instead of the seeming endlessness of early childhood, our time together had a clear ending.
And then, it didn’t. for life. Wouldn’t she want to take a When the pandemic hit in the gap year rather than miss out on all middle of Dahlia’s senior year, everything that? changed. Her San Francisco What gap year? There are almost high school shut down for inperson zero jobs, internships or travel opportunities. classes. Prom was canceled. Her Running off to au pair in chosen university, UC Santa Cruz, Italy or to backpack through Southeast announced it would not welcome Asia were not options. So in early freshmen to live on campus in the October, she started college from her fall, only online. When we sat down bedroom. The tearful farewell I had in our living room to watch her high always imagined outside some large school graduation ceremony on YouTube, campus dorm building, the end of instead of sobbing at our imminent childhood as we knew it, didn’t happen. loss, I felt like the ticking clock ( At the time, it was hard to imagine of her childhood had stopped. it ever would, but with the latest
We were all disappointed to learn vaccine news, this scenario could she wouldn’t get the full college freshman play out in the fall of 2021.) experience, especially knowing Though the big change didn’t happen that some of her friends at other universities as expected, we still had to make would be able to live on some accommodations to her new campus this fall. But in many ways it college reality. Our apartment is has been one of 2020’ s few silver small, and her room is about the size linings. For me, it’s the unexpected of her portion of a dorm room, but bonus time I have gotten with our without much desk space. It connects eldest child. For Dahlia, who has to our dining room, where I had been dealt with an anxiety disorder since working remotely during the shutdown. childhood, it’s been a more gradual, I moved my desk into our gentle descent from the nest than bedroom so she could take over the expected, and one that has ended up room to go to classes remotely and working out, so far. study day and night if she wants.
Over the summer, when I told my She signed up for her first quarter’s friends that Dahlia wouldn’t be going courses online, in subjects like climate away for college, they seemed more change and marine biology. As upset by they idea than she was. They she began attending them, I found couldn’t imagine her not experiencing myself eavesdropping as she asked the first year of college the way her professors questions or chatted they had — staying out all night, with other students during group studying in the library, meeting boys projects. and girls to flirt with, making friends I’ve loved getting the chance to witness some of her time in college, and also getting to know the kind, curious young adult she has become, especially since kids often seem to grow out of their surly, sarcastic teenager stage right before leaving home. ( Still, we’ve noticed, she hasn’t yet outgrown the childhood habit of leaving her shoes and backpack in the middle of the kitchen floor.)
My emotions around this, though, are complicated. Behind the enjoyment I get in having Dahlia around is the guilt of knowing she’s missing out on so much of what is often considered a birthright for so many American kids. For Dahlia, the idea of losing out on the social part of college, leaving only academics, felt like a huge letdown at first, even a personal slight, since big milestones like graduation and prom had already been canceled.
“I remember feeling frustrated because I wasn’t getting the same experience that other people got,” she told me recently. “It made me angry because I knew it was something I couldn’t control.”
But over the months, as the pandemic grew worse and she started to adjust to the new reality, she began to feel relieved she wouldn’t be one of thousands of college students crowded together during a pandemic.
“At least I knew I was doing the right thing,” she said. “At least I wasn’t going to be someone on campus and partying.”
Once classes started, she realized that the delay had worked in her favor in a more profound way. Because of her anxiety disorder, which during middle and high school had sometimes caused panic attacks, she had always worried about how she would deal with the combined stress of leaving home for college and starting new classes at once. Suddenly, she only had to deal with one of those.
“It made the whole transition into starting school way less stressful than I had built it up to be in my head,” she said. “I think now going to the dorms next year sounds way less stressful, because now I know what school is like. The transition is going to be so much easier.”
I think it will be easier for me, too. She’s currently staying in Mendocino County for about six weeks in a rustic cabin next to her grandparents’ house while taking classes remotely. The idea was to give her some breathing room and independence and time with her cousin who is also at UC Santa Cruz.
Even though I knew she would be coming back to live with us again soon, when we dropped her off there in late October I finally cried. It hit me that her leaving for good is inevitable, pandemic or no pandemic. The clock hadn’t stopped forever. But when it starts ticking again — when she finally really leaves home — we are both going to be ready for it.