By Amy McGarry
One of my all-time favorite songs is “Landslide” by Fleetwood Mac. The landslide coming down in this song is a symbol for a sudden upheaval. It represents a time in your life when there’s a violent shift in the ground beneath your feet, for which you have no control.
“If you see my reflection in the snow covered hills
Well the landslide will bring it down.”
Hearing the lyrics to “Landslide” has always affected me viscerally and profoundly, but never more than right now. You see, right now, I’m preparing for my daughter, my one and only child, to move out of the house and leave for college at the end of September.
The line from “Landslide” that really gets me is,
“I’ve been afraid of changing cause I built my life around you.”
As the parent of an only child, I have, by choice, built my life around this person. So has my husband. That’s just parenthood, right? Every day prioritizing the safety, protection, and nurturing of this little one (she never got any taller than 5 feet, so we still consider her “little”).
The good news is she’s attending the University of Washington, so classes don’t start until the end of September, giving us a whole extra month to protect and nurture her, while most of her friends had to leave for college in August. I’m torn between sadness, for how much I will miss her everyday presence in my life, and worry, wondering if I have adequately prepared her for life on her own.
My husband is concerned that I (yes, me, the mother) have not adequately prepared her for life on her own because I didn’t spend enough time teaching her to cook (yes, I’m laughing out loud as I write this). Who needs their mom to teach them how to cook in the days of YouTube? Heck, even a recipe book can walk you through the steps. Never mind that her dorm room doesn’t even have a kitchen. But my husband comes from Morocco which is a country where teaching girls to cook is a mother’s priority. Not this mother; I had other priorities of what I wanted to teach her.
My husband didn’t have the privilege of attending college, so he doesn’t have the perspective I have. When I was preparing to go to college, like my daughter, I had always been a good student. But I had been raised by parents who never went to college. They raised me with their belief that if you are a good student, you go to college, then land a good job, make money, and live happily ever after. All in a neat, straight line. That was not my experience. So, in preparing my daughter for college I wanted her to understand a few things I wish I had known.
First, it’s okay to not be sure what you want to be “when you grow up.” My kid gets so many questions about what she plans to study, or what she wants to “go into.” She’s had the same answer for the last several years. But that could change, and that’s okay. My parents became very concerned when I changed my future goals every year and more frequently. That didn’t fit their idea of how going to college is supposed to work. What we know now is the decision-making part of our brain isn’t even fully developed until the age of 25. Yet college freshmen are expected to be making decisions about what they’re going to do for the rest of their lives.
As for my parents’ belief that being a good student meant I was bound for success in life, that was also not my experience. I wished that I had known that being a good student doesn’t automatically ensure success as an adult. There are many, many more skills one needs in life that don’t even come from the classroom. I have worked very hard to instill this understanding in my kid.
Therefore, it’s perfectly okay to fail. Because my daughter has been such a good student and school has always been easy, her identity became wrapped up in being a good student. I worry that she didn’t learn the natural lessons through failure in school. Luckily, there have been some other opportunities for failure along the way to teach her that it’s okay to fail: a couple of losing softball seasons, debate competition losses, and not coming in first in the poetry slam. More importantly, we’ve had countless conversations about how much harder college will be, and if she fails, she can pick herself back up and try again. I wish someone had told me that.
Some big differences between my daughter and I, however, make her departure to college much different than it was for me 40 years ago. When I left for college, I had been driving for almost three years, I had been working at a fast-food restaurant for three years, and I would soon be 19 years old. My daughter doesn’t have a driver’s license, has never had a high school job, and she just turned 17. That seems very young to me to be kicked out of mama’s nest. I wish I would have considered that more when I made the decision for her to skip a grade. I was too focused on how important it was that she be challenged in school. I didn’t want school to be so easy that she didn’t experience failure. As noted above, that backfired.
How will my daughter fare sharing a room with a stranger when she has never had to share her space, the whole basement of our house? Especially since she desperately needs alone time to recover from the normal stimulation of life. How will she do that with a roommate? These are the worries that keep me up at night.
Although she just turned 17, fortunately my kid has some wisdom as well as book smarts. She also has a really good therapist. She’s thought of strategies to overcome these challenges.
One of my greatest joys recently was when my daughter told me she wanted to get a tattoo on her wrist that said, “Why worry?” I told her that’s a great question and I love that idea. Why worry, indeed? Maybe one of the greatest life lessons for both of us, is that worry does absolutely zero good. I wish someone would have told me that.
Another life lesson I hope I’ve instilled, that I wish I’d learned a long time ago, is a phrase on a ring my daughter wears. I gave her the ring for a graduation present. It says, “This too shall pass.” The ring also has an image of a dandelion with its seeds blowing away in the wind. Isn’t it empowering to remember that no matter how bad something feels at the time, it’s only temporary?
A landslide is devastating, but it’s temporary too.
One day my friend and I were sitting outside in her backyard when we saw an eagle in its nest in a tree. We thought maybe there were baby eagles. My friend, whose daughter just graduated from the University of Washington, pointed up to the nest and the eagle, and said, “See? That’s what it’s like for us. We take care of them in the nest. We prepare them to fly.”
I said, “Oh! Like Red Bull! Mamas give them wings!”
My friend said, “Ummmmmm……okay. Sure.”
Whether it’s the mama eagle, or Red Bull, the hope remains the same. Did I give her enough love, confidence, and support so that she will grow her wings and fly?”
Maybe the most important message I have given my daughter, as she prepares to embark on her journey of independence, is that having wings and being able to fly on your own doesn’t mean the nest disappears. I will tell her every day, home will still be here. Mom and dad will still be here, always. She simply must believe that she can fly on her own.
Amy McGarry grew up in Spokane Valley, Washington. After a 20 year hiatus, she moved back to Spokane Valley where she lives with her husband, daughter and two cats. She is the author of I am Farang: Adventures of a Peace Corps Volunteer in Thailand, available on Amazon. com.
