Many parents say they are left with overwhelming feelings of grief when their children leave home. As more teenagers head off to university, what can be done to cope and even thrive when you get the house back to yourself?
Signs of seasonal migration are everywhere in the university town where I live: double-parked cars, warning lights flashing, occupants emptying jam-packed boots; bright flocks of Ikea bags, plump with pillows, extension leads trailing. Later in the day there’s another migratory wave: pink-eyed parents, heading back to empty homes with quiet kitchens and unmolested fridges.
This weekend I’ll be joining the migration. My son just messaged me (yes, from a few feet away) to say he has booked a moving-in slot at his hall of residence on the other side of the country. It will be my second – and last – time dropping a kid at university; his brother started last year. It’s an event both utterly ordinary and so emotionally freighted it has become a cultural moment, anxiously anticipated and amplified by celebrity interventions. Rob Lowe, Heidi Klum and Ulrika Jonsson have all described their pain. Ruth Langsford of This Morning recently told Women & Home magazine that after her son left, “for the next three days I felt like I’d had my womb ripped out … I was sitting on his bed, sniffing his pillow”. (Being left alone with Eamonn Holmes might drive many of us to something similar.) Gordon Ramsay confessed to being so bereft, he wore his son’s pants – I’m truly sorry for sharing that.
