My Daughter and I are Graduating
Mark K June 9th, 2007
My daughter graduated last week from the eighth grade. It’s a joyous occasion, so why am I feeling so sad?
She’s our youngest child and since she attends a Catholic school with grades kindergarten to eight, this is, at last, the end of our days of having children in elementary school. The school community is a close-knit one with great respect for tradition and ritual, so during the last few weeks it has felt as if our family has been presented with a gold watch over and over again. There was the dinner dance for eighth graders and their parents complete with a farewell speech from the principal, and a “first dance” with fathers dancing with daughters and mothers with sons. There was the eighth grade play, with each student acting a part on the same stage where they had performed as wild animals in the first grade circus seven years ago. This was followed by the class trip, the award ceremony, the last day of wearing uniforms, finals week, and the graduation itself.
It seems like the school principal had figured out how to wring every last drop of nostalgia out the waning days of our sons’ and daughters’ childhoods.
To make it even harder to bear, my daughter is ecstatic about leaving grammar school with nary a backwards glance as she skips off towards her high school future.
But where does that leave me? As a father of the twenty-first century, I’ve been on the cutting edge of father involvement with my children. My wife and I have chosen to take a non-traditional approach to our roles as parents. When my son was born, I stayed home and served the “Mr. Mom” role while my wife worked and when my daughter arrived I worked part-time so that I could be available to help my children. My duties have included everything from diaper changer to PTA president, soccer coach to library assistant. I became used to being the only dad in a group of moms: When my son was an infant, they changed the name of our parenting group from “Mommy and Me” to “Mommy, Daddy, and Me” and years later I didn’t even bat an eye when one of my female friends said, “We moms will be attending the meeting” when she was referring to a group which included me. I even become indignant when someone condescendingly refers to “soccer moms”.
So, I guess it’s only natural that I’m going through the kind of identity crisis which in the past was something usually experienced by mothers. When you come to define yourself largely through your role as a parent, it follows that you’re going to be jolted a bit when your child doesn’t seem to be a child anymore. Sure, you know that you will still be needed, maybe more so than before - just last month I helped my daughter purchase a pair of spiky high heel shoes for her school dance - but somehow that only reminded me that she is no longer a little girl. In fact, for years I have been making a conscious effort to slowly wean myself from being involved in activities at the elementary school, knowing that this day would come.
I spoke with a father of a high school senior a few days ago who has been raising his daughter by himself for the past ten years. After graduation, she plans to attend college a hundred miles from home. He told me, with a touch of sadness in his voice, “I guess I’ll just have to figure out a way to reinvent myself.”
That’s the key, I guess. We dads have been reinventing the institution of fatherhood for the past generation or two. Those of us who have chosen to be more involved in raising our children have had a front row seat at the milestones of their lives. We’ve been able to develop an easy communication honed during years of chatting with the person in the passenger seat and have been rewarded with the kind of close relationship that fathers of the past couldn’t imagine.
Still, it doesn’t make it any easier when a phase of this relationship seems to be ending. Admitting how we feel and talking about it with others is new ground for most of us as well.
Traveling into new territory is always a little uncomfortable, but I’m not the only one making the trip. I think I’ll call my friend and ask him about how he’s doing with this re-invention thing.
What do seaweed and parenting have in common?