This Is It: The End of Parenting

In exactly two weeks my second-born, Jacob, will leave to go to Germany.  He will stay for six months (and has already mentioned the possibility of staying a whole year). This alone is a deeply emotional moment for me.  Almost 40 years ago, when I was his age, I asked my parents to let me go to the US for a one-year exchange through AFS.  It was a time when I had begun encountering my yearning for adventure, for change. Interestingly, this teen yearning for adventure was emerging from dreams and phantasies about "returning" I had had since I was a little boy. My parents said "no" at the time, putting forth an argument that floored me (because it was so unexpected) but also convinced me deeply--and that they now claim they never articulated or thought of. The argument was:

Wenn Kinder in Dein Alter kommen, Martin, dann koennen Eltern zum ersten Mal die Fruechte ihrer Arbeit (naemlich der Erziehung der Kinder) geniessen. Diesen Zeitpunkt wollen wir nicht verpassen.

(When children reach your age, Martin, parents can, for the first time, enjoy the fruits of their labor (viz. of parenting. We don't want to miss that point with you.)

As I said, this argument deeply impressed me.  It stayed with me throughout the last four decades and has informed much of my own parenting, both the conscious and unconscious parts of it. What it says to me, in a nutshell, is that parenting is a finite experience.  That in an almost Marxian sense there is an "end product" to our labor and that we want to enjoy and partake in that end-product. It says: "This is it! As parents we're no longer necessary the way we used to be."

So, how do we best enjoy that end product? How do we partake in it? And more importantly even: what are the deeper, likely attachment-based, reasons for this need for enjoyment and partaking?
What I heard my parents say in this as well is "We're not ready, Martin. We need some time to let go. This is too abrupt, too far." Again, I understood this as well.  I may even have thought "maybe I'm not ready; maybe I'm going too fast here." So, I stayed and one thing I have never asked my parents but feel like I should ask soon is what do they remember of those years following that conversation. What did they see and witness? Are they glad it went this way? When I wanted to leave eight years later that decision no longer gave them pause.  It made sense to them, and to me. Now I am still here, almost 30 years later, and my mother has said on occasion that she curses the day I left.  My father is quiet, but still sends me occasional job-ads for therapist positions in Germany.

So there is a paradox in this part of the story: it shows itself in the juxtaposition of "this is it" and "we're not ready." It is not a contradiction. If it were that, we would fail to see the beauty and awesomeness that comes from these kinds of situation.  If it were a contradiction, we would, ultimately, have to choose one or the other. We could not let both stand as they are.  And yet, that is exactly what I think we ought to do, if our desire is to truly appreciate how multifaceted and emotionally rich these situations are. We're done, but we're not ready to let go. Nor will we ever be . . . ready or done.

I have always told myself that, if my children expressed a wish to study abroad--no matter what age or school situation they might be in--I would support it. So it comes as no surprise to anyone who knows me that I am fully supportive of Jacob's decision to take this step.  Aside from the obvious things most people say about study abroad (good to be fluent in another language, to be exposed to another culture, etc.; all of which often strike me as rehearsed and performed by a culture that is normally not very curious about different cultural experiences) my most salient experience of Jacob in all of this is his independence.

It's not the first time I have encountered him in this way.  Whether he was muscling his way up to his mother's breast right after he was born and put on her stomach, or it was him deciding to climb one of the highest trees on our property when he was four, or it was when he decided to ride his bike twice around the block (his first time ever to ride his bike around the block) when, after he had come back the first time, I was not waiting at the window for him. Independence is their task, really from the time they're born, and as parents it is our task to guide them towards that goal. I have been ready for and encouraging my sons to be independent for a long time.

The real challenge in this doesn't lie with encouraging independence itself. The real challenge lies with the other side of independence--dependence.  I have found that the greatest genuine dependency need while practicing independence is to be assured of being loved.  It is not "I'll help you out when you're stuck" or "next time we'll plan this together" or "here is some good advice." Because all those interfere with our children's need for and right to independence.  Rather, the dependency that really provides the necessary fuel for independence is that of knowing oneself deeply loved and cherished--no matter what the outcomes of our adventures may be.  It is in this way that as a father I can say to my sons "I have your back! And always will!"

So, I am clearly perceiving Jacob's upcoming experience in a slightly vicarious way. He is making the move to a foreign country at the age I wanted to, but didn't.  There is more than that.  For while Jacob is going to study abroad, he will do so at my old high-school and he will stay with my parents, in the same house I lived from 11 to 22 years of age. In other words, Jacob's trip away from home is a strange home-coming experience for me, vicariously speaking.

This is where it becomes dicy because I would like for him to have an experience that is not mediated by my own wish for "return" (as mentioned in the beginning of this blog). The answer, perhaps, lies in the combination of "this is it" and "I'm not ready." I still feel quite certain that this experience for Jacob will factually mark his transition from childhood to adulthood. So, yes, this is it. But because he is going to my old school and staying with my parents there is a strange reassurance that it's okay not to be ready. He will not go towards something that is utterly and completely unfamiliar to me. Rather he will be in a place that I know, a place and people to whom I am still deeply connected. I am pretty confident that my parents would have let me go, if the question had been can I stay with and go to school where my grandparents live.

Will there ever be a time when our children depart for the truly unknown? There may. I can only imagine what it must have felt like for my parents to see me leave for the US on August 16th, 1985.
One thing I am particularly grateful about is that my father has, in the last 18 years, through uncounted visits, followed me to this place he once didn't know.  He has literally shown me what it means to have a child's back. In this lies a very special kind of validation. It's not pride in his son, it's not praise . . . it's a validation of my existence that comes from joining me here . . . in love.