It’s all a bit hazy,and he’s blinded us “with science” and the incredibly confusing online timetable that means he sometimes discovers a first-year subject he somehow forgot to do three years ago. We’ll be the last to know when he finally graduates. But we will be clapping.
Want your kids to talk freely? Strap on your seat-belt.iStock
So he jumps into my little green Mazda – the Frog – and we set off at 7.40am. I love our car rides together. I love the way we banter and joke and do impersonations and go all philosophical in the space of eight minutes before I deposit him at the train station. We’re always in the middle of something fascinating when he has to leap out to catch the 7.49. “To be continued!” we shout through the window.
We cover anything from the what-ifs to the why-on-earths and did-you-knows. What if you were born old and started growing younger every year? What if you found a sick mouse in your garden and took it to the vet – would they give it CPR with their index fingers,or wouldn’t they bother? Passing a curvy lycra-clad jogger,how do you know when you’ve overdone the butt filler? Did you know female emus leaves home once she’s laid her eggs,and the dad emu spends the rest of the time sitting on them till they hatch?
I know that easy talk in the car is a thing with kids. Mickey Mansfield ofYour Modern Dad website writes:“Did you know that studies show that kids will talk more in the car because they don’t feel they are ‘on the spot’ and can’t see your reactions? They feel safe telling you things that they might not ordinarily tell you. It is because they are looking at the back of you and not into your eyes.”
There’s no staring at the back of my head any more because my son is sitting right next to me in the front (he’s a big boy now). But staring straight ahead might be conducive to a chinwag as is the neutral (moving) ground of the car. In fact,transport can be an excellent leveller. A friend told me that when his 23-year-old wanted to tell her parents that she was gay,she waited until they were getting off a bus and couldn’t overreact. “Oh,and I’m gay!” she said as casually as saying “Let’s go to Maccas”.
So our little car rituals that span kindergarten to prep to year 12 to uni are coming to an end and with them a treasured era. At least he’s still living at home,I console myself. But for how long? Am I a Norma/n Bates (Psycho) kind of mum who doesn’t want their kid to leave home? Not just yet,anyway. I need him here to give me belly laughs and to riff about all that is weird and wonderful and to love him at close quarters. But I know this is selfish. I know that as his mum I should be encouraging him out the door to go live his life and be independent.
I should be grown-up,like Sheelagh. Sheelagh was a rich mature-age student,and I was a poor young ingenue when we shared a study room at uni. I clearly remember her – “ancient” at 40 – saying she hoped her four children would leave home by the age of 21 or earlier if possible. How can she say that? I wondered. Can’t she afford them any more? Doesn’t she love them enough? She did,of course. She was simply a go-ahead woman who wanted to encourage confident,self-sufficient kids.
There’s a practical but cringy aspect to the hasty send-off. In one of my favourite ads on TV,a young man returns to the family home unexpectedly. Living away has only lasted a couple of months. He tells his parents he doesn’t want to talk about it,just wants to go to his room for a bit. He opens the bedroom door and sees it’s been transformed into a slick Reece bathroom. “My bed!” he squeaks,looking at the new bath. “My desk!” he says,gazing at the new toilet. “We saved the vase you made me,” the mother consoles him,looking only half guilty.
Perhaps empty-nest reactions depend on how many children you have or whether you’re a sentimental schmuck like me.
So it’s 4pm,and I’m back at the station,waiting to drive my son home. I don’t need to do this but … you know how it is. A thick chunk of humanity squeezes through the exit,but I glimpse his longish dark hair and strangely conservative shirt in the rearview mirror. I open the passenger door and am grinning already. “Hi Mum. Did you know that bonobo monkeys,when they greet each other,have sex? They do it all the time. It’s not that they’re promiscuous. It’s just a thing.”
Jo Stubbings is a freelance writer and reviewer.