The Last First Day: Endings, Milestones, and New Beginnings

This week I posted on social media the photo and caption I’ve been fearing. TOW* tall figures stand half-smiling, full sets of straightened adult teeth barely visible, hands hanging stiffly at their sides, empty of the sweet signs announcing which grade they are to start that morning.

TOW Mom gets to say:

Last first day.

Last first day.

Milestones

Our twins were just eight years old when I started pulseonparenting.com, and if we had stayed in the U.S., their graduation from high school would have been within days of pulse’s 10-year anniversary. Not by design, which makes this a meaningful coincidence. Ten years of writing about parenting, inspired by two of my favorite people. Our boys’ educational milestone hand-in-hand with a personal milestone I could not have achieved without them.

And a parenting milestone as well. What we give our children, that foundation to become good people, happens during the first eighteen years of their lives. Thinking of every memoir I’ve ever read, there are, without fail, stories about the people who’ve influenced the author’s motivation, values and ethics, helping them become accomplished people. I’ve joked in the past that parents should guide their parenting as if their offspring will someday write their memoirs. But how true it is. We are an example. Kids remember a lot, good and bad, from a young age.

So I hope with all my being that I haven’t screwed them up too much.

Thus I see this milestone, this “leaving” of high school (in New Zealand, those who finish school are called “leavers.”) rapidly approach, and worry there’s a lot to still accomplish before our boys…

leave home.

I haven’t even set up senior photos yet.

Fortunately for my procrastination, senior photos aren’t a thing here in New Zealand, at least not in our part of the country. And full disclosure, a small part of me doesn’t want to believe my kids are almost old enough to vote, and especially not old enough to be drafted. My heart is thrilled with the former and struggling with the latter. My boys are still babies, aren’t they?

Ready for New Beginnings?

Then I hope I haven’t “babied” them too much. I’ve worked from home all their lives and done the bulk of the laundry and meal prep and mundane household work. What if I’ve done too much for them? If I’d worked out-of-the-house, they would have had more responsibilities, learned life skills much earlier, and been better prepared for real-life independence.

In retrospect, should I have returned to my career after they were born? I stayed home for them, but has that decision been, in the long run, a detriment to them?

It sucks when Last First Day collides with mid-life crisis. (See my previous post on perimenopause.)

Actually, my kids do know how to tidy up and use the stovetop, but lately I find myself making a more conscious effort to hand over the reins. Talking to the bank clerk about setting up an account. Making follow-up phone calls and emails. The little things that require interacting with the real world of which they will be a part once they leave the confines of school. It’s an effort to pass this torch, but seeing my kids budding into maturity is ever so gratifying.

Departing on the tail of turmoil

The teen years are humbling for parents. And even tougher for the teens themselves. They don’t (seem to) listen; they hide in the funk of their bedrooms, grunt and mutter, and their moods ride a rollercoaster similar to the ones they love in pursuit of a dopamine hit.

It’s enough to make parents ready for their children to fly the coop. And maybe that’s why the difficult teen years lead up to high school “leaving” and kids leaving home:

It makes that separation easier. Just a little bit.

Maybe.

I was surprised this morning when my kids didn’t groan about the ritual first-day-of-school photo. Perhaps they, too, are feeling the weight of this final first. The words Last First Day carry real weight with them.

Or perhaps they are growing up.

I don’t want to think too hard about that right now. Because for the moment, they are still kids. If even for just a few months more.

*In case you’re reading this and not a Friends aficionado (why aren’t you?!?), TOW means “The One With” the phrase that starts the title of each and every episode of this iconic sitcom.