Cup O’ Joe: Time to let go?

Separation anxiety. It is something every parent goes through at some point in his or her life. How each parent deals with it, however, varies widely.
    For some, the feeling comes quickly as many mothers must drop their infant off to a daycare center or babysitter to return to the workforce. For others, it comes on the first day of pre-school or kindergarten as his or her child steps onto the school bus or walks through the school doors for the first time.
It is arguably one of the most unnerving feelings one can get as a parent. The fear of the unknown. Will your child be safe? Will the people watching out for them keep track of their whereabouts at all times? Will they be able to call home if they want to be picked up?
It is a feeling that doesn’t seem to get any easier the more it happens, either.
In our household, that feeling arrived yesterday as we dropped off our 8-year-old daughter (who constantly points out that she is soon to be 9 years old quite frequently) at the Living Waters Bible Camp in Danforth. All weekend long, there was nothing but talks of how excited she was to be going; what she was going to do for activities; and how much fun it was going to be.
My wife felt it would be a great opportunity for her to attend the bible camp to make new friends and have the traditional summer camp experience. She had done similar things as a child her age and had wonderful stories to tell. I, on the other hand, had serious reservations about it because I never did overnight summer camps as a youth. And mostly it was because I didn’t want to acknowledge that my baby was growing up.
I noticed the excitement slowly started to change during our hour-long trip to the camp. The normal eager responses to my questions about what she planned to do at camp and what activities she was looking forward to the most were being answered with fewer and fewer words.
I know my child well enough to know what that meant. She was getting more and more nervous with each passing mile, but didn’t want to show it. She’s a “big girl” now and was trying to prove that to us. I played along, of course, but all the while I was secretly hoping she would just blurt out “I don’t want to go!”
So when we arrived at the camp, I did my best to point out how cool everything looked and mentioned how much fun she was going to have with every other sentence. I don’t know if I was trying to convince her, myself or both of us.
We went through the check-in process and got a quick tour of the facility. But when it came time to drop her bag off at her dorm room and leave, tears started to flow. First, from my daughter, then from my wife. Who would have guessed that I would be the one smoothing everything over and convincing my daughter she would be OK while my wife had to head for the vehicle so nobody would see her bawling?
It was a long, quiet ride back to Houlton and an even longer night spent trying to get to sleep.
The last thing I want to do is force either of my children to do something they don’t want to do or go someplace they do not want to be. And yet, sometimes it just has to be done. You don’t want your child to be so dependant on you that they are incapable of functioning outside of the safety of their home.
Growing up, times were different. During weekends or summer vacations, I could be gone all morning on my bicycle, playing at various friends’ houses, and my parents often had no clue where I was exactly. I’d return at lunchtime to eat, and then be gone again until suppertime.
Today, I wouldn’t dream of letting my children go off on their own without knowing precisely where they were going, who they were going to be with and what time they were expected to be home. I’m not so sure I’d even let them walk to the corner convenience store — the same store I would get sent to as a youth to pick up some milk or other grocery items all the time.
The media is partly to blame as stories of abductions seem to be on television on an almost nightly basis. We want our children to be independent — to have them experience life along their own path. But why does it have to be so difficult for parents to let them go?
Joseph Cyr is a staff writer for the Houlton Pioneer Times. He can be reached at pioneertimes@ nepublish.com or 532-2281.