When the children move out: ‘They don’t write about this in the parenting books’

There have been attempts to have a particular conversation in my house, but I refuse to be part of it.

Not in any gentle avoidance way, but in a full-scale blanking of any efforts to raise a subject that I just do not want to discuss. At all. I am prepared to go full ostrich, head in the sand on this. It’s the only way I can cope.

For now.

The latest attempt to start the conversation involved the mention of a tree. “I’ll need to get a Christmas tree for the apartment,” she said, before I frowned, stood up, and left the room, unimpressed at the reference. “She” is not the cat’s mother. “She” is my lovely daughter. My eldest child. The one who made me mum.

‘A primary school teacher shook a child in class, according to my granddaughter. What should I do?’

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The one who taught me that I can manage on surprisingly little sleep. The one whose arrival turned my world upside down and inside out beyond recognition. The one who on any given day takes my makeup/hair straighteners/clothes/false tan – (delete as appropriate) – but who, in spite of this light-fingered tendency, is my right-hand woman. The first to go through all the milestones. The first to start school, finish school, start college, finish college. And now the first to move out of home.

Only I’m not ready.

Not by a long shot.

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And so denial has been my default position. But it’s a position that’s getting harder to maintain as the weeks pass and we move closer to the date she’ll move out. Our job is to raise our children to be independent of us. The difficulty is this particular person reached that capability shortly after her third birthday, and I’ve been raging against the tide ever since.

She reminds me I was younger than she is when I moved out. But I’m in no mood for reasonable comparisons. And I’m glad that she’s found somewhere suitable to rent, especially in this time of rent crisis. “I suppose at least she’s not emigrating,” I think to myself, not daring to say it out loud lest I put the idea in her head. But it’s still going to take some getting used to.

They don’t write about this in the parenting books. I know because I wrote one. They tell you about the crazy days, the homework battles and sleep deprivation that’s enough to make you delirious. Some offer “this too shall pass’ mantras and or unintended versions of “you only have 18 summers” guilt trips.

But they don’t tell you what you’re supposed to do with yourself, when one of those children, who you spent your life trying to discourage from eating muck/making questionable teenage fashion choices/dyeing their fabulous naturally blonde hair (delete depending on stage of parenthood or specifics to hair colour) does exactly what life intends, if you’re lucky enough, and starts their own next exciting stage of the journey.

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With little regard, I’ll add, for the fact she’s going to leave me with all these boys. Will I ever get to watch a chick flick from the comfort of my own couch without judgment again I wonder, wallowing in the awfulness of my fate – condemned to a life of super-hero movies, sci-fi and galactical spin-offs.

I’ve always lamented that life started to move at a ridiculous pace, once we started living by the school calendar. Months passed by at the speed of days and children’s birthdays appeared to come around more quickly each year. And the Covid years paused life but not ageing. And now I’ve one about to flee the nest.

“I’ll be in and out all the time,” she says reassuringly to a smaller boy who’s also finding the idea of change hard to get used to. Another brother shifts perspective and puts his eye on her room. I think of what my mother-in-law said about how young her children were when they were gone from home and I’m glad again for my ridiculous Dublin mortgage which means they can live at home during the college years.

And I remember the excitement of moving into my first flat myself and the same need to buy a Christmas tree. “I’ll be moving back in on the 23rd and staying all over Christmas,” I hear my eldest child say to my youngest child. (So, no pressure love, but I’ve put it in The Irish Times to make sure that happens.)

And then I left the room again. Because although all is exactly as it should be and I’m so happy for her excitement and her future. She will always be my baby girl.

And this is hard.