Feel absolutely devastated my dd isn’t coming home this summer

[Lemonmeringue76]

My dd is not coming home from uni this summer, even though the holidays 4 months long. All my friends’ children are; all over social media I see posts about not long until they come home and his all these parents can’t wait. We had such a lovely summer last year - a holiday, spa days , lunches and shopping. I had it in my head I’d get two or three more summers until she had a full time job and would move away.
I was getting so excited and now I feel so down about it. I keep thinking I am literally the person paying for her rent in her uni city and I have paid to make myself this unhappy.

OK - you are feeling sad - that is valid. But please don’t wallow in the sadness, @Lemonmeringue76 - you need to embrace the future, and you can’t do this while you are hanging on to the past.

So take a moment to be sad, but then take a deep breath, and find things that you can look forward to. You owe it to your dd - you don’t want her to compromise her future because she is worrying about you being so sad without her.

We have to let our children go - but your relationship with her sounds great, so I am sure it will survive time apart - that is my experience, with my dses. I am proud of them, building their independent lives - even though it means that one is 8 hours away and another is on the other side of the world.

@MesonBoson and @CurdinHenry

this is Mumsnet. We are allowed to miss our children.

The only mistake the Op has made perhaps, is posting in aibu, where apparently bullying and knocking down another mother is ok.

OP, well done on raising such a wonderful, independent and secure daughter who doesn’t follow the crowd. nurture that relationship and see what you can do to continue that. Would, for example, a week away together appeal?

This type of response is “a classic” example of Mumsnet at its worst.

so focus on the majority, ignore the bots and trolls, and focus on little ways to continue that lovely relationship.

Sorry but this just isn't true. I never came back to live at home after leaving for uni and didn't go back for the summer and I'm female. My sister didn't either.

Isn’t feeling absolutely devastated a tad strong?

Gently op, she's an adult now. She wasn't going to live with mummy for the rest of her life. Your home will be gradually feeling less & less like "home" to her. I remember when I was 22 and rented a flat and first had that feeling visiting my parents, that when I went back to the flat I was going home. Its normal, she's growing up.

You sound like you need to throw your energies into other things in your life - hobbies, job, friends?

No one’s ‘pretending’. That’s actually how we feel.

And yes, people are pulling the OP up on her frankly mad comment about ‘literally’ paying her child’s rent and how she’s paying for herself to be made unhappy by her YA child’s age-appropriate independence.

My girls have been desperately homesick at uni and I have had to fight every urge to not sweep them up and drag them home. And yet I'm also really proud of them and really valuing the headspace them being away has opened up.
It's all a mess!
Anyway. The most homesick one, something clicked socially a fortnight ago and suddenly life is so much brighter for her. She had to be there for that to happen.
The older one loves the frantic social nostalgia of coming 'home' but then gets the frustration of regressing back into predictable behaviour of others she knows from school.
I feel like I've swallowed the CBT/bright side of life cool aid.

That's sad. It must be really hard to adjust to them being away and I can understand feeling disappointed when you were hoping to recapture the feeling of them living at home like they used to. I think I'd feel the same way. I don't have any advice as such, just do your best to see her for visits and try not to smother her. Maybe book a spa day or something, with her input on dates and whether she wants to, so you have something special to look forward to.

I can’t help but feel sad. I see stuff on the news about children staying at home with parents until mid to late 20s because of financial pressures or of children going to uni closer to home to save money. I can’t help but wish things were like that here but she’s never thought money was a problem to us- not rich but I guess fairly comfortable.

Oh OP a few posters have posted in that situation and they said they’d much rather be in yours

it’s time for you now - she’s fledging

I think it’s really important not to share how you feel in order to keep your relations In tact

I am however bemused at you decorating her room…do you know why you wanted to do that? I’m just wondering if you’d not faced that things were changing - it just sound a bit of a mismatch with your perspectives

I took a long time to feel able to leave home, came back to live at home after uni. Came home a lot during term time. Much as I miss DS (and sort of hoped he might live at home longer) I am proud he has the confidence to move on quicker than I did, and wish I had been as confident as him at the same age.

I am still close to him, we still do things together as a family, but I have to let him go and do his own thing. I may cry when I wave him off (don’t let him see that) but am also happy for him. This parenting lark is hard

Mine all stayed away most of the summers after first year
They (we) were paying for their flats and they were having a good time moving into their adult lives
In some ways I would have been more worried if they had come home
But I can understand yo being upset if it was not what you were expecting

Ignore all the idiotic, goady posts OP.

I totally get why you're dissapointed. My DD was supposed to be coming home for a while after 4 years away but is now planning on moving in with her boyfriend a very long way away in their uni city.

This also means the uni city will now be their home for the forseeable future.

It's really, really tough. The difference between them leaving for uni and then after is brutal.

I have a feeling your DD may regret it once all the other students have headed home and at least there's a chance she'll be back at the end of her course.

@Lemonmeringue76 would you rather she had financial pressures, and had to stay at home, go to a closer uni rather than do what she really wanted to do?

You don't have kids for yourself, no, but you also don't have kids so they can simply become some kind of discrete economically viable reproductive units. Nobody should be guiltripping their kids but by the same token, it's not unreasonable to hope that there's a lasting connection and reciprocity and that might mean coming home occasionally. People are so cold about this.

She wanted to do her room. It was her idea. Last year she still came home a little- every holiday and quite a few weekends. I had no idea that would be the last summer and I don’t think she did then.

Interesting how we all have different views.

Mine are still very young but I already think about the future and them still living with me in their mid 20s is the very last thing I want. I want them to have their own life like i did.

I mostly stayed in my uni town during holidays where i worked. It’s great that your DD has found work and independence.

Wow, sweeping generalisation much?! I don’t think this is the case whatsoever. I actually think it’s pathetic that you’re sad your DD didn’t choose a uni close to home to be frank! Unless you live in or near Oxford or Cambridge and she was capable of those echelons but left to go somewhere else just so she could be far away then you are very much being ridiculous.

She’s an adult and she’s clearly happy in her uni city. I think this should make you happy really, many students are miserable and depressed.

@Lemonmeringue76 but isn’t it great for her that she has grown in confidence in this last year

Ah sound alike she’s grown - maybe you can talk to her about it

phillipa perry wrote some great stuff about how she handled it with her daughter - I think she was just open about her upset and then they agreed a way through - I’ll see if I can find it

She’s grown up. It’s not about you.

I hope this makes you laugh because I do feel like this. I have 4 children by the way. If you have only one child then you will feel all three at once. A bit of humour to lighten your mood

https://youtube.com/shorts/GxK2u4i6Wuc?si=27wMdKInKIFNof7G

@Lemonmeringue76 you are going to have to learn to step back when partners come on the scene.

I can understand that you will miss her, but being devastated seems an extreme reaction. She’s a young woman who is becoming more independent and may be looking forward to a summer with her university friends, working and enjoying herself, starting to feel like an adult, exploring the world from a different perspective. I remember summers like that when I was a student. They are among my fondest memories of those years.

In contrast, returning to my parents’ house was less appealing. Most of my friends from school weren’t around, and sometimes I felt more like a child than a young adult. It can be easy to fall into old patterns and dynamics. Don’t get me wrong, I loved my parents dearly and enjoyed spending time with them. But I had reached a certain stage in life which meant that new experiences and a sense of independence were priorities for me and I couldn’t have them in my childhood home in the same way.