Your Last Child Is Leaving The Nest. So What Else Is New?

For generations, parents have been saying goodbye to the last of their children when they graduate high school. They go off to college, the armed forces, a gap year or otherwise move away. What more can be written that hasn’t already? What else is new that we haven’t heard before?

For anyone, like me, who is preparing to send their last (or only) child off into the world, there  is something new and different. That is, it’s happening to  us . This exact experience is personal and ours alone.

Like being pregnant, giving birth or loving your own child, well-meaning people may try to tell you what it will feel like but there is nothing anyone can say or do that will prepare you for your own experience when your last child goes out into the world. The feelings are deep and primal. It is a singular event, marking time like no other.

Family’s change when the youngest leaves home.

There are, of course, many other moments in your child’s life that come only once. The last day of nursery school, the final time we’re invited into the pediatrician’s exam room, the last school play, basketball game or dance performance. But this is different.

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