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This September, my son, Sam, leaves for college, which makes me part of the great wave of baby boomers now becoming empty nesters. This means I now have far too much time to contemplate all the obvious questions: How many times a week can I call him, or is only texting allowed? How much Facebook stalking is healthy? Can the helicopter parents of my generation really let go, and do our children want us to? Who is this harder for—me or my husband? For the next nine months, I'll be considering these questions and more for the Empty Nest column.
“Two weeks from Friday we take Sam to New York,” my husband, John said, checking the calendar on his BlackBerry as we walked our aging golden retriever late on a thick Houston night. Yes, I thought, but today is only Tuesday—what’s your rush? Sam’s girlfriend, Frances, a wide-eyed, freckled, and fragile beauty, is clearly feeling the same way. “I wish I could make time stop passing so quickly,” she posted on her Facebook the other day, and for a second I could almost feel my heart break. I have been able to keep the truth at bay for the last few weeks, managing to summon an uncharacteristic optimism (Parents’ Weekend is Oct. 17, and Thanksgiving is a month after that, and then there’s Christmas break ... ) and even dreaming about reading novels in one sitting or taking exotic trips without worrying about life back home. The $4,000-per-person journey to Angkor Wat that John’s college alumni association is sponsoring was even a fleeting, if financially insane, fantasy. But circumstances have forced me out of my denial, reminding me in myriad ways that Sam is really leaving and that a new phase is really beginning for me, too, whether I like it or not.
“So, how do you feel about being an empty nester?” is a question I am now asked almost every day, and all I can think to say in response is “I’m not one yet!” in a tone that gets a little sharper every day. If I do manage to escape the well-meaning questions, there is the mail. In place of the letters from colleges we got almost daily last year are offers, mostly from big-box stores, to help Sam make the transition to school with the HGTV seal of approval.
I took a trunk to college in New England—my parents brought me a large turquoise metal thing—largely because I had a stereo and those big round black things called records. (My mother also sent me off with a metallic sheet from a mail order catalog that was supposed to help me retain body heat. I think it was meant for campouts in the Arctic.) Sam has an iPod, a credit card, and access to anything he might forget with just a few keyboard clicks. In the last three weeks, Bed Bath & Beyond has sent no fewer than three coupons for 20 percent off, as well as a letter saying that they will have free shuttle service between Sam’s campus and a Manhattan store on Aug. 30— from 8 a.m. to midnight. The company that offered us the $200 linens package (for those extra long, extra narrow, your-old-sheets-won’t-fit college twin beds) recently sent us another flyer offering a $159.95 Off-to-College Value Pak that included “a hanging garment organizer, a hanging shoe organizer, a sport towel, carpet sweeper, easy clip fan,” and, of course, a power squid. There’s also the Student Shower Pak, which for $19.95 has everything a college student needs to get to and from the shower, including a plastic tote and rubber flip-flops for use on the bathroom floor he or she will never clean.
The school’s resident hall organization has gotten into the act too, offering “The Support Plan,” a fundraiser—no, those didn’t end with high school—that includes premade care packages of munchies and handwritten notes (written now, lest you forget about your kid once he’s gone) for various times of the year. Along with the $47 Welcome Package, for instance, there is the $25 Trick-or-Treater (Snickers and Doritos), and the $25 Valentine Surprise (Hershey’s Kissables and, inexplicably for the East Coast in February, an inflatable beach ball). I know times are tough, but haven’t these supposedly well-educated, ultra-sophisticated educators seen Food, Inc.?
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