30 Jan Facing the First Day: A Parent’s Emotional Journey

Her youngest child’s first day at school has an unexpected effect on Helen McKinnon.

I thought I had been waiting for this day for the past seven years. My youngest trotted off to her first day of school. (At least I think it was her – she looked more like a bag and hat with legs.) She waved goodbye, beamed and chatted with her preschool friends and filed into her classroom as though she had been going all her life. Hardly a backwards glance was spared as I tried to catch her eye for a goodbye smile and wave.

I let her go, and the hint of sadness I felt, along with mild surprise that I was even feeling it, was bustled away by all the familiar faces and the excitement of seeing friends again and catching up with all the holiday news. I confidently declined the offer of tissues from anyone who asked. No tissues for me, thanks – I’ve been waiting for this moment for seven years. Bring on the champagne!

Adjusting to the Silence: Coping with an Empty House

Then I returned happily to my empty house full of all those jobs that I had been desperate to get stuck into unencumbered. So many possibilities – I could go shopping for that fabric I wanted, I could paint the deck, learn a language, make something other than spaghetti for dinner, clean out the filing cabinet and resurrect that dead patch of garden. I could even go for a run. My husband would probably have been able to recite this list in his sleep, since I’d spent the past seven years whingeing that I’d never had time to do any of it.

But along with unlimited possibilities, the house was also filled with unmade beds, general detritus – and washing. Why was that still there? This phase of my life had been stretching before me as some kind of glorious nirvana, and the fact that the washing had somehow managed to infiltrate it made me feel vaguely cheated. A little ball of uneasiness started to grow in the pit of my stomach.

As I roamed around the house trying to prioritise my activities, the ball got bigger. The quiet of the house contrasted horribly with the maelstrom of indecision in my stomach. At 9.30 in the morning, my brain was filling my head with weird but tempting thoughts, such as, ‘You know, you could just have a nap. You haven’t even made the bed yet – it would be like you hadn’t even woken up…’ and ‘Just put the jug on for now, you can do the dishes later…’

I decided that a run was an immediate priority. It took me ages to find my gear and then to actually put it on. By the time I’d made it to the front porch I was in a state of full-blown panic, my ‘anxiety ball’ the size of a watermelon. I felt like one of those characters in a movie who, having survived a hurricane or some other terrible disaster, manages to emerge windswept and grubby on the other side. The only problem was that all I had done was go into the house and put on my running gear.

The Long Goodbye: Navigating the Nest-Emptying Process

I realised that this adjustment was not going to be as simple as I thought. It also struck me that this was something that I was going to have to get used to – the ‘uneven goodbye’ that is the lot of the parent. The one where you are left behind in the land of boring chores with just a ball of anxiety to keep you company. Meanwhile, the little adventurers are already sallying forth into the world of excitement, disappointment and danger, blissfully unaware of you and of all the pitfalls you can see ahead of them. Admittedly, in this case, it’s just the local primary school, but the ‘ball’ knows that you can’t let yourself get too complacent.

I know that no matter how preoccupied and worried about them I am, I will not feature in their thoughts at all – except perhaps in the context of a lunch-box disappointment. That is how it should be, of course, but I’m not sure that I like it.

I began to have visions of myself in the future – wrinkled, grey and halfway through oiling the deck, waving goodbye to them as they set off for their first train trip with a bunch of friends. The danger! They could end up talking to strangers, getting locked up for not buying a ticket, breathing in someone’s cigarette smoke… And that’s not the worst of it. There’s another vision of me, nearly finished the first coat of the deck, waving goodbye as they hop into a car being driven by one of their friends who has obviously just got out of nappies… And then, finally, there’s me, a totally grey, snaggle-toothed crone, working on the last step of the deck, waving goodbye as they move out with some friends – or even a boyfriend – who I’m sure will probably make my anxiety ball even bigger, no matter how wonderful they are.

So I think I understand what the big deal is all about. This is just the start of the nest-emptying process and its associated trauma. And I haven’t even finished the nesting stage yet. No wonder they hand out tissues along with the champagne. Bring on the tissues.