All Grown Up and Still in the Nest

My heart went out to him. In fact, I felt so uncomfortable that I looked away. How humiliating to be in a university registrar's office with your father taking charge. As I stood in line, waiting to ask the registrar a question about my loan, I watched a young man and his father ahead of me. The father was doing all the talking. The son was staring at the floor, his face red with embarrassment. I could not help but overhear the conversation. The father was questioning the registrar about his son's fall courses, course load, and the possibility of changing his major. The son said nothing.

When it was my turn, I asked the registrar my question. She answered, and then I left. On my way out, I noticed the father and son were still at the counter. The father was still talking. My heart goes out to this son. My thoughts also go out to his father. No doubt, he means well. He is, nonetheless, misguided. I was an undergraduate in the 1970s. In those days, we did not have parents accompanying us to the registrar's office. We went alone. We stood in line alone. We talked to the registrar alone. We were, in a word, adults.

I grew very angry. “Oh, grow up, go home,” I wanted to shout at Dad from my place in the line. I was equally shocked as I sat in a seminar for 500 first-year teaching assistants and was told what to do when Mom and/or Dad shows up in your office complaining about the marks or assignments that you have given to their children. It is a very real issue in universities these days. Baby-boomer parents seem to struggle with two things: saying no and letting go. The teaching assistants massed together in the theatre were advised to send unhappy parents directly to professors. I sat in disbelief, but yes, it happens.

Mom and Dad, your children are no longer children. Rather, they are eagerly trying to be adults. So whatever are you doing in line with them at the registrar's office? Twenty years ago, when I first entered university, parents did not follow their children all the way there. My parents dropped me at the front door of St. Hilda's College at the University of Toronto and drove five hours back home.

I was not ready, prepared or clearly aware about what would happen over the course of the next four years, but I muddled through. From professors and teaching assistants to registrars and student-loan officers, I learned to find my way through the perils and pleasures of university life. Naturally, I made mistakes, but then I still do. Were my parents not caring or uninterested? Not at all. What they were not was university-educated baby-boomers who believe all events must be designed and controlled and that everything I did was a direct reflection on them.

My parents came from another generation. They never set foot in a university. They were pleased, and supportive, when I decided to attend but they considered me an adult at 18. The incident I saw in the registrar's office was not an unusual sight. I wish it were. Rather, about six people behind me in line, I discovered another parent-child grouping. This time a son was pleading with his mother to stay put while he went to the counter and dealt with the problem himself. They were still negotiating when I left.

Too many baby-boomer parents are overly concerned with success. They just don't want to let go. When I tell my mother that I have won a scholarship and will undertake graduate research in Europe this fall she says, “That's nice, dear.” My mother would argue that my success is my own. I would argue that my success is a result of being allowed the freedom to make mistakes and find my own way. To parents whose children are attending first-year university, just remember they have all grown up now. It is time for you to do the same.