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When my daughter got off the bus after the first day of kindergarten, she talked non-stop until she went to bed. I felt like she shared every single detail of her day. That habit continued pretty much through her senior year of high school.
Then we dropped her off at college. Trying to be a good parent, I told myself I wouldn't call and check on her that night. Or the next day. Or the next. I'd give her space and wait until she called me.
Of course, I texted a short "Thinking about you" that first night. Then the next day I sent: "How was class?" and the next: "What did you eat for lunch?" She answered in one or two-word texts. I knew she was alive, but after a few days of not hearing her voice, I began to have withdrawals. I missed not knowing what was going on in her life, and mostly, I missed the sound of her voice.
Not only that, I started to worry that she might be sad or homesick. What if she was in her dorm room, waiting for me to call? What if she thought we didn't miss her? What if she was alone, not making friends, and worried that our family life was going along happily without her?
I gave in and called. She was happy, eating dinner with friends, and too busy to talk.
My worries were dashed — but not my withdrawals. It was time for me to buck up and learn how to navigate this new stage of parenting.
When I went to college, we had a phone in our dorm room, and it cost money to call home long distance. I called home once a week or so to check in, and that's all that was expected. These days, our kids walk around with a calling device attached to them, and we're used to calling them whenever we need to. But just like when we went off to college, they need the space to make the transition into adulthood without us hovering.
So, instead of using our smartphones to call, I used the other features to communicate with my daughter.
Instead of calling her randomly, I learned to send a text wishing her good morning and have a happy day. Sometimes, I send a picture of the dog in the middle of the day. When I'm scrolling through Instagram, I share a funny post. When I get back that "lol" emoji, I feel a little better.
My mom says I should feel lucky that we have this new technology, and I do, but I still miss hearing my daughter's voice regularly.
The first Sunday afternoon of my daughter's college life I saw her number pop up on my phone for the first time in a week. I stopped what I was doing to make time for her, and then she proceeded to talk for two hours.
It turns out she did want to share her new life with me. It was just a matter of finding a time when she had a little privacy and not much going on.
After that, we've settled into a sort of routine. We don't make plans or set hard and fast rules, but Sunday afternoons are when she does her laundry, and I guess it makes sense to call while she waits for the clothes to wash and dry.
I look forward to those phone calls; it's our one chance to really connect during the week.
Those first few days after dropping my daughter off at college, when I called and got brushed off, I turned to the internet and social media for solace.
I read blogs, searched for articles, and commiserated with parents on the college's parent message board. I found a very mixed bag. I thought everyone would be going through the same thing I was. But just like with newborns, there are different parenting styles and parent-child relationships. Some people FaceTimed with their kids every night. Others got a check-in phone call almost every morning. Some parents went a few weeks without talking to their kids and relied on sporadic texts.
What I've come to realize is how often parents talk with their college kids is as widely different as how often married couples have sex — and the end result is the same. Do what's right for you, and don't worry about what other people are doing.
