musings…

My oldest boy, my first baby, started classes today.  I’m a lucky parent because, although he’s nineteen and a college student, he still lives at home.  I have him on borrowed time, something that I appreciate every day.

I feel that way to a lesser extent about my sixteen-year-old.  Too soon he’ll be his brother’s age…and I don’t know whether he’ll elect to live at home for a time while in school.  He’s more likely to go to university, which probably will mean living on campus from the start.

You can’t know, though, what your kids will choose until they choose it.  We have always maintained the philosophy AND the policy that our kids should pursue their passion(s) so that they have the best shot at a happy and fulfilling life.  (I’m here to tell you that all those adages about work not being work if you’re doing something you love are true.)  There are conditions attached to our follow-your-passion policy, of course; one’s “passion” cannot be remaining jobless and unschooled and sleeping every day until mid-afternoon.

So, when our oldest chose a field (firefighting) where most of the training is provided and the extra education is an A.A.S. degree offered at community college, we encouraged him to live at home for as long as he can stand it, or until he’s done with school, whichever comes first.  It’s working very well so far.  Still, I’m aware that these days are gifts.  I’m aware that many, probably most, parents don’t get to see their nineteen-year-olds daily.  (And yes, I’m aware that there’s a portion of that group who are just fine with that!)

When I was my oldest son’s age, I’d already been married for a year, and was living 10,000 miles away from home.  There were no cell phones, no PCs with Internet communication capabilities.  In fact, my rented house in Angeles City, Republic of the Philippines, didn’t have a telephone at all.  If I wanted to talk to my mom, I had to go onto the air base (where my then-husband, an Air Force A1C, worked) to a special building that had phone banks.  The long-distance rates were astronomical: I remember calling home one day following a terrorism incident, to assure the family that we were okay, and the hour or so total of our calls cost us more than $200–most of that month’s rent money.  In the three years that I lived there, I spoke to my mother maybe three times, and to my father (they were divorced) not at all.

My oldest in college… His brother about to get a driver’s license… It all seems impossible, because I’m pretty sure that it was only a few weeks ago that I was changing their diapers, cutting up their food, reading to them from board books, and, yes, sometimes wondering if they would ever get to the stage where they were both in school for at least part of the day, so I could steal a few hours for myself.

Now I just about have to rent time from them in order for us to do things together.

I miss the little people they were, but I love the big people they are.  So it goes.