For mothers of high school and college seniors, graduation season heralds a new phase of parenting. The excitement is palpable – and a bittersweet hint of change is in the air.

“I feel like I’m being forced into early retirement,” said Joanne Keys, a Royal Oak mom whose daughter, Natalie, will graduate this week from the University of Detroit Mercy with a double major in economics and business administration.

Keys is proud of her daughter’s achievement – but she knows letting go won’t be easy. Borrowing a quote from Ann Pleshette Murphy, her favorite parenting expert, Keys said she can’t miss the irony in the fact that the goal of motherhood “is to work ourselves out of the job we’ve spent a lifetime perfecting.” 

Sandy Gossett can relate. Her daughter, Sydney, will prepare to play golf and basketball for Siena Heights University in Adrian after graduating from Royal Oak High School on June 2.

“It seems like yesterday we were shopping for a daddy-daughter dance dress,” said Gossett, also from Royal Oak. “But in reality, yesterday we were shopping for a prom dress. Before I know it, I’ll be saying the same thing about a wedding dress. I’m not getting any older – but my child is. How does this happen?”

Looking back, moving forward

My own child, Nate, was a senior at Shrine Catholic High in 2004 when I heard one of the school counselors refer to graduation season as “May Madness.”

It was an emotional roller-coaster ride for me. When I wasn’t caught up in the whirlwind of year-end carnivals, award banquets and graduation events, I wondered where Nate’s childhood had flown. Fighting tears, I’d revisit old memories in a family album bulging with photos of birthday parties, Christmas mornings, homecoming dances and Halloween nights.

That’s when it hit me that one of the sweetest gifts of midlife is the selective amnesia that blurs the less idyllic memories of infancy and childhood – the exploding diapers, the postpartum blues, the temper tantrums. Not to mention the thorny years of adolescent back talk and curfew enforcement. When our children prepare to leave for college, after all, we tend to focus mainly on the Hallmark moments.

All the nostalgia seems a bit maudlin to me now. But reflecting on my early years of motherhood made it easier to prepare for the launch to college. It also rekindled my gratitude for the privilege of spending time with so many terrific young people.

During the years Nate was a student at Shrine, for instance, our home was a favorite neighborhood hangout.

Looking inside our refrigerator then, you’d never have guessed we were a small family of three. I wanted to take every opportunity to get acquainted with Nate’s friends, so I always made sure we had plenty of after-school snacks on hand. When I unloaded my grocery cart at Hollywood Market, the clerks who didn’t know me would ask if I was feeding a very large family or hosting a party. I always answered yes to both questions.

And because my extended family left for college when my son did, my feelings of loss encompassed more than one child.

As any seasoned parent will tell you, grieving is natural during the first few weeks of empty nesting. Children give us a sense of mooring and purpose – and that sense of mooring suddenly disappears when they move out.

“It was quite an adjustment when our daughter Amanda left for Michigan State last year,” recalled Samantha Pattison, a Royal Oak mother of two. “It was like our whole family dynamic was changing. But Amanda has grown so much in a year. We now have adult conversations, and I love that. I miss my girl, but love the woman she is becoming.”

Embracing change, letting go

Few parents I know are comfortable with the term “empty nest.” An empty nest sounds pathetic and forlorn – adjectives that hardly fit the millions of parents who are happily redesigning their lives after raising families.

“A word signifying a void or a vacuum is an unfair way to describe a time when life can be full of growth possibilities,” note Laura Kastner and Jennifer Wyatt in The Launching Years: Strategies for Parenting from Senior Year to College Life (Three Rivers Press).

Kastner and Wyatt also remind us that children fare better in college when they know their folks are moving on, too. In other words, helicopter parenting doesn’t benefit anyone. Letting go means allowing our children to score their own victories and to recover from their own mistakes — without our meddling.

Still, there’s no shame in admitting you’ve got an achy little tug on your heart (and a bundle of damp tissues in your fist) when your child walks to the stage in her cap and gown to accept her diploma.

As NPR essayist Marion Winik wrote, “Once you’re a mother, you can never think something else is the most important thing.” Of course, it’s hard not to feel ambivalent when “the most important thing” is relocating to the other side of the state at the end of the summer.

“Sometimes I worry about sending my only child down an unfamiliar path without me by her side,” said Karen Lankin of Royal Oak. Lankin’s daughter, Melissa, graduates with distinction from Royal Oak High School next month. Come fall, Melissa will head to Grand Valley State University to pursue studies in nursing and health sciences.

Meanwhile, despite what she calls “an overwhelming flurry of graduation activities,” Karen Lankin plans to slow down long enough to savor the present and to make some happy memories with her family while Melissa’s still at home.

“It helps to talk to my own mom, who advises me to calm down and take one day at a time,” Lankin said. “My mother also reassures me that while our new lives will be different when my daughter is at college, they will always be intertwined.”

Cindy La Ferle's award-winning Royal Oak story collection, Writing Home, is available at Amazon.com. For more information, visit Cindy La Ferle's Home Office.