She’s leaving today

[slippingthroughmyfingers1]

My daughter is leaving today. She graduated from university this summer and has found a great graduate position and is moving 2 hours away for it. She has worked so hard, done everything she needed to and she is so so excited about her future.

I’m so incredibly proud of her and the woman she has become and I know that this is the natural order of things, we raise them so they can go and live their own lives but I’m also just so sad this morning knowing that she will never “live” here again. She will come for visits and we will visit her but it won’t be the same. I thought her leaving for uni was hard but this is just more final than that was.

I wouldn’t change a thing, she needs to go and live her life and I’m so excited for her to do that but also just incredibly sad this morning.

We have still got her younger brother and sister at home so the house won’t be empty by any means but it still really hard and I don’t know where all that time went!

Of course you will have mixed emotions.
It will be so exciting for her.
You must be so rightfully proud.

Then she might turn around and visit every 4-6 weeks for an extended "spa break", an expression my friend coined when her daughter used to come home.

The spa break is a complete break from adulting aka, cooking, cleaning and laundry🙄.
As my children whom have been away for the summer told me when they came back last week, looking after yourself is hugely over rated.
They are delighted to be back to the full pantry and fridge, regular meals and a tidy house.

I on the other hand loved the break from them all.
Congratulations on a job well done.

I felt like that when my son left and he’s my only child so we went from having him with us to it just being me and DH. It felt really weird for months and I’d keep expecting to hear him on the PlayStation or hear his key in the lock when he got home from work. It’s subsided now as it’s been 3 years but it was definitely weird for a while.

I completely understand this. My DS is starting university soon and thankfully, is staying at home.
I know I will be devastated when he finally goes as we are extremely close.

Love the "spa break" and it's so true. When DS2 was single and renting he would do that every few months. I loved having him, fatted calf etc and he got all the home comforts for a bit.

I have to say the first one to leave is the easiest, it was much harder for me for the second child. When the oldest starts school you have some precious one on one time with the second child but when your baby starts school or leaves home it's the end of an era. Those child rearing years are fleeting.

its natural for kids to move on you were lucky to have her for so long and with her only moving a short distance away. My 18 year old left for Uni over 200 miles away and never really came back. My younger son moved to my former childhood home about 30 mins away by bus and train aged 19 , I see him most weeks but the separation is healthy, he can have a relationship with his girlfriend without anyone else's scrutiny.

I would suggest you build up your own life away from being a mum so when the younger kids become independent its not so painful.

I think firstly its different with an only child, but this case there are still 2 at home. In my case as a stay at home single mum whose whole identity was just that. when my kids left at 18 and 19, I really was home alone albeit with the dogs and guinea pigs. There is a different future though as one of my kids is already thinking of grandkids in a few years time, so I may have young kids in the house again.

I get it OP. How well she's done though! Even though it's the what you want for her, it's still hard. Lots to look forward to for you both. 💐

That’s so lovely ❤️

I just had a quick look at that posters history. The last thread she was on she followed exactly the same pattern of behaviour...

I'm so sorry that you're struggling with this new chapter in family life. I love my 2 adult sons more than anything, but I honestly wasn't sad when they each left home to work or for university. It just felt that this was the right thing to happen. I saw my job as a parent being to equip them emotionally and practically to become happy and independent adults. My childhood experiences meant I found it really hard to make my own decisions, without feeling guilty if my parents did not approve. I never wanted my sons to feel like this. They are both back living at home now for economic reasons, like so many young adults. I long for the time when it will be possible for them to fly the nest again, because I know that this is what's best for them. 🌸🌸🌸

Awww! It must be so hard.

She will be back more often than you think.

Life goes full circle. I was abroad in my 20s and 30s, moved back to the U.K. and now live just round the corner from my mum and dad in my 50s, which I love.

You haven’t lost her. xxxx

@slippingthroughmyfingers1 - congratulations to your DD and you’ve obviously been a great mum. I definitely agree with the poster quoted here.

I don’t have kids, but this thread has been lovely to read from the POV of mums. I am in my 50’s now, but still remember the excitement of my first job, moving out, building friendships, buying my first home on my own, going on holidays, basically building my life. The pleasure I took having mum to say at mine - cooking for her, taking her out in London etc. My mum brought us up mostly solo, must have been hard when we left, but she always encouraged us and never showed her sadness. And she was always the person I wanted to share the minutiae of life with - I doubt anyone else would be interested in how much fur I groomed out of my dog when shedding her winter coat, or how fiddly shallots are to peel, or how I’d got my air fryer drawers muddled so had cooked sausages for 45 minutes and a jacket potato for 8 minutes 🤦🏻‍♀️

Mum died two years ago, just 2 months after an out of the blue diagnosis, she was early 70’s. When clearing her belongings, we found 2 piles of letters - one for me and one for my sister. She’d written to us on Mothers Day over a period of years. Just chatting about things we’d achieved that year in our own lives, days/nights out that we’d done together that year - with anecdotes and laughter and silly recollections. Some of the events I’d forgotten about. They were a shock find and hard to read at first. But now I am SO grateful to have them. Her love and pride shone through in every letter and they’ve been a wonderful reminder of the bond we had, but also of the “quiet” sacrifices that she made in order to let us live our lives. I miss her desperately and will be forever grateful and proud that she was my mum.

Sorry, that’s a very long waffle. Your bond will grow and change, but it can be just as strong and meaningful. Best of luck to you and your DD in this new chapter.

Well done to you and your dd. Completely understand what conflicting feelings you have pride and joy but sadness too at the passing of a lifestage xx

Well done to you and your dd. Completely understand what conflicting feelings you have pride and joy but sadness too at the passing of a lifestage xx

What a lovely post, not least because you don't have children and sometimes on MN that creates such division.
It's absolutely true about your mum being the only person in the world who is interested in your trivia. When I left home in my 20s I didn't call my mum that often but later in my 30s when I had children that changed. Once dad died I used to ring my mum every day at 5 pm and there was always something to say, however trivial. She died in 2020 and I reached for the phone at 5 every day for a long time.

I don't know whether that's more common with daughters. One of my sons will always think of something to put in a message each day, the other not so much but he lives nearer and will come for tea sometimes.

Having said that, with offspring, no news is usually good news.

I love threads like this (apart from the occasional grumpy poster). We should all be proud of bringing up our children and whether they launch, stay at home, boomerang or whatever - that bond is to be cherished. ❤

How lucky we are those of us that had lovely mothers xx

Do you really have no empathy at all for OP? No ability to appreciate how she feels? She didn’t say she lacked other aspects in her life, just that she felt sad about missing her child as they moved into a new phase.

Its not about empathy its about responding to a child that is moving not that far away. It happens to all parents though in this case they have a close bond, so I am no doubt there will be plenty of visits. She also has two at home still . I think trying to develop a role outside being a mum as your kids grow up is a good thing.

I'm sure the OP knows that. This thread is really about mothers collectively acknowledging that this is one of the hard parts.

I have gone through a lot tougher as have my friends to be honest accidents mental health issues being from groomed at school this seems like a first world problem. Fine talk to your friends but with 2 kids still at home it seems a bit odd coming to MN I wonder what the other kids think about it. When my older son left, it meant I was able to spent time with the younger, before they left. It must be a huge upheaval for mum's of single kids though.

You might want to start a thread for your own support.

This one is to support the OP who has valid feelings and would like to express them.

The song 'slipping through my fingers' expresses it so well, even though my DD is still going through earlier stages each one brings me closer to her leaving
But it also means there is a newer version to get to know
It's a very odd feeling!

Just to update we are home now and she is settled and sorted. She’s moving in with a friend who already has a job in that city so we’ve left them to go out for dinner etc and get sorted.

just wanted to say thank you to those who understood where I was coming from. I’ve read through the thread and, as others have acknowledged, so many lovely stories and thoughts.

ive also seen the comments about how I should only feel proud and happy for her, how others have it worse and even inferring I don’t have a life of my own.

as stated in my first post, I am incredibly proud of her and very happy for her. I’m also very excited for her about this new chapter in her life where she gets to experience the things she has worked so hard for. I do think this was clear in my OP. Again, as stated by others, it is possible for someone to feel more than one thing at a time. Happy for her, sad for me. It doesn’t mean I have no life of my own or outside of her, or that we have some co-dependent enmeshed relationship. It just means that I like the person she has grown up to be and I will miss seeing her quite as often as I do now.

anyway. Her father and I are going to have a well deserved glass of wine and toast to the fact that one is successfully out of the nest!

💐Thank you for sharing this moment with us.