When my middle daughter went away to college she wanted the independence to grow, make new friends, build new memories. The school was roughly an hour and a half from home. Close enough that I could come to her rescue if need be (which I did a couple of times), but far enough that she could spread her wings.
Before she left, I read several articles about what to do when your child goes away to school. The number one piece of advice: Don’t hover. Let them be.
They need to find their footing without you always stepping in. Constantly calling or showing up for unannounced visits, the articles said, makes the independence less independent. Listening to that advice was the worst thing I have ever done in my life.
My daughter was happy to be back in a classroom in college
The last half of my daughter’s senior year of high school was online. She was happy to be back in a classroom. Some classes were still held online, at the teacher’s discretion, but she had to stay on campus, logged onto the school’s wifi, either way.
The day we moved her in, I cried the entire way home. We’d taken a picture together before I left. She looked so happy. I was happy too, but I wasn’t ready to let her go. She was ready to spread her wings, and I wasn’t going to be the one who clipped them.
I think it was that same day that she called me in a panic — she had no groceries. There was a shuttle that ran to the grocery store for the students without cars, but she’d missed it, and it wouldn’t run again for several days. I got in my car and drove to Wegmans, bought what she asked for, and headed to her dorm. It was starting to get dark by the time I arrived. One of her roommates helped her carry the food in — I wasn’t allowed inside, since only students who lived there could enter. She hugged me, kissed me, told me she loved me, and I headed home.
The silence that followed my daughter’s leaving was surreal
The first 24 hours in our house were surreal. There was a voice missing, a presence absent that I felt everywhere. Our puppy kept going to her room and whining at the door. I was missing one child, and with her went that space in our home that only her laughter, her voice, and the sound of her running in and out with friends or her boyfriend could fill. My heart ached so badly that she was gone.
That first semester, we talked maybe once a week. I loved hearing about her life on campus, her friends, the silly and crazy things she’d done. She came home once or twice a month, depending on her soccer schedule, and I loved having her home. That one extra voice, for one or two days, rounded out the sound coming from the bedrooms upstairs. Her absence was always felt.
By junior year, she and her roommates decided to move off campus. It was a tall financial task, but between everyone in her life, we managed to raise the money she needed for rent. My boyfriend gave her a credit card to use for utilities and “everything but the bar.” She spent her last two years of college living off campus with her best friends.
The part I have to own was not visiting her enough while she was away
That all sounds like everything was amazing. It sounds like I was a good mom to her. I wasn’t. I didn’t mean to fail her but I followed advice I was given, and in doing so, I isolated my own child. I was also grappling with serious physical and mental health struggles. I had become very obese, and I didn’t want to embarrass her, or myself, by showing up at campus or at her games.
Movement was hard. My anxiety was crippling. She always told me not to come, she wasn’t even playing much anyway, in her words, so I took her at her word. Honestly, her letting me off the hook made it easier to manage everything I was struggling with. She said it was okay, so I didn’t have to feel guilty.
I should not have listened when she told me: I didn’t have to visit
I should have ignored her when she said I didn’t have to come. I should have heard the unspoken “but I want you to.” I never knew that her roommates’ parents came to visit nearly every weekend for lunch or dinner. She never mentioned it. In my head, she was just doing college things, parties, the bar, dates, and she was, but not enough to justify how absent I’d been.
I didn’t see her house until the weekend she graduated. I knew she loved pink, so I’d imagined her bedroom decorated in it. She’d sent me pictures, described it to me, and I thought that meant I already knew what it looked like, as if I’d been there. She’d send pictures of “Galentine’s Day,” of “Hot Dog Day.”
I should have been there. I should have said, “I’ll come down on a Saturday and we can hang out.” I should have told her I wasn’t taking no for an answer, then followed through and not disappointed her.
She needed me more than I knew
She needed me far more than I understood at the time. I failed her. She was a young adult finding her footing, spreading her wings, but she still wanted me there. I didn’t put her first, regardless of what I was going through. My children, my child, should have come first.
I failed, and failed, and failed again.
We had a falling out a few years ago, and that’s when she told me how all of it made her feel.
When she said, “You’re my mom, you should have been there,” my stomach dropped and my heart broke, because she was completely right.
I broke her heart, over and over. She learned independence, yes, but only because I forced it on her. Those mistakes can’t be erased. Those hurt feelings are still hurt feelings I can’t undo.
What I still carry with me
When she was younger and playing indoor soccer, we had so many car rides together; talking, laughing, bonding. I’d tease her because she was a little bit of an airhead, and she’d smack me right back with her wit and put me in my place. Neither of us wanted to be up at 5:30 a.m., driving to some tiny town our GPS couldn’t find, in the middle of a snowstorm but we did it.
We’d stop at Tim Hortons for frozen hot chocolate, in a blizzard, because that’s just what we did. She usually fell asleep on the ride there and back, worn out both ways. Between games, we’d sit together in the stands and watch the other teams.
We’d (and I’m not proud of this, but it was funny at the time) quietly trash talk the competition. The girls fought fiercely on the field, but off it, everyone had made friends with everyone.
I spent years building memories with my little girl on those trips to the middle of nowhere, but I shattered so much of it with four years of my own stupidity while she was becoming an adult. At 13, she wrote a school essay calling me one of her best friends. I failed my best friend.
What I want to say to her is this
Kiddo, I did not deserve you the day you were placed in my arms. I’m sorry that I made you feel unwanted, inconvenient, and unloved. Those four years chipped away at the eighteen years of mother-daughter bond we worked so hard to build.
Every accomplishment, every hardship you’ve overcome has not been because of me, it’s been in spite of me. I am sorry. I love you deeply, and I hope that someday this becomes a lesson between us, not a lasting wound.
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