This week the kids went back to school here in Greene County. First thing Tuesday morning the “Cheese Wagons” rolled out in force picking up the excited and not so excited to begin another school year.
Since it’s been more than a decade since I’ve sent anyone to school, I’ve had to live the event vicariously through my friends and neighbors. My neighbor Angela and family prepared to send their grandson off to kindergarten. Watching their preparations and anticipation of this giant step in this young person’s life; to step onto a large vehicle of public transportation alone, with his name pinned to his shirt, brought back so many memories of first days of school gone by.
On my first day of kindergarten, my mother and I waited patiently on our front steps for the bus. I don’t remember my dress (dresses were the norm then) but I do remember a beautiful hand knit bolero jacket I wore. The yarn was ecru with a gold thread running through it. Despite our best preparations, the bus missed me and drove on by sending my mother scrambling.
When it was time to send Maggie off to school, I worried about the location of her bus stop. It was on the other side of the busiest street in our neighborhood. I put on my big girl panties and called the school requesting a change to our side of the street. My request was granted and I’d made my first step towards and long and happy relationship with the school system that lasted until our move several years later.
By the next year when Andy was to go, a new school was built on the edge of our neighborhood and we were in a walking zone. Walking seemed like a great way to start our day until the first heavy rains came and we became painfully aware of the poor drainage of sidewalks in our neighborhood. Parental pressure on the school administration changed all that. Soon every child in our neighborhood was bussed, even across the street to the school. I never really embraced the idea, but eventually capitulated because it was easier for me in the end.
We had many “first” days of school after those, most caused by moves, some by matriculation. Each had its own level of anticipation and angst both on their part and mine. The letting go was and still is a struggle.
Yesterday I had a long talk with an old friend who is experiencing a difficult family challenge – one which has both blind-sided her and set the entire family on a tenuous course as they decide what is best for their granddaughter. Weary after several long days and nights trying to resolve on the issue, her husband asked her, “When does the parenting end?” Never, she told him.
Crisises are just a reminder that parenting never ends. For me it is impossible to imagine not having at least some concern for the challenges my children face. Sometimes, when the time/space continuum seems blurred, my kids seem to be those same bright faces heading off to school for the first time. I see their backs as they move away from me for the first time, living their own lives apart from me. Each time I am both proud and happy for them but also a little sad and glad that they don’t rely on me as they once did.
Thankfully, the bonds are still strong and they both know they can call Dave and I anytime, just to hear our voices, like when they’d call to us down the stairs after we’d but them to bed, or to discuss something important. No, parenting never ends, just as being a child never ends. We all face our “first days of school” throughout our lives were we set out into the unknown, as prepared as we can be for the day ahead. When the going gets tough we either step up and parent or step back and ask for help like a child either from our own parents, another person or even God.
Thank God parenting never ends. It’s nice to know someone is watching your back!
