Parent in the sunset years of their child’s school career

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I know what you are talking about, OP. There are years when you seem to know everyone. When you come in, every is ahead of you, you get involved and meet everyone and form some groups - all your year and ahead of you. Year by year, chunks of those people graduate and move on. Meanwhile, new families are coming up behind you, but for some reason, you seem to get to know fewer of them -- not no one, but also not everyone. So one day you look around and everyone is behind you, and you realize you only know a handful of families, often those with kids in older and younger grades and those who volunteer a lot. You have this moment of, "I use dot know everyone!"

I remember that feeling during my last semester senior year of college! It’s the same way as I’ve progressed through my career, too. I used to know everyone in every area and pay attention to every detail of people’s career moves and changes. Now I know the c-suite, my peers, and my immediate team, and I have only a vague sense of junior- and mid-level employees across the rest of the company. It feels weird only when I’m at an all-hands or a big company social event.

[Anonymous]

Last club sport tryout this spring. Hooray!!! My Youngest a rising HS Senior. I enjoyed it all and was present for all of it, but surprised I haven’t been as emotional as I cried at all the “ending” events in K, elementary and Ms graduations- ha. I did not at all at my firstborn’s HS graduation it was such a proud, exciting and happy moment. I used to cry just thinking about that moment and then it came and I was just so happy and proud. And he killed it in college this year. He will be home May 8th already. Seeing it’s not “the end” and how much (due to long school breaks) we saw him - I’m not upset. It feels like we just moved him in and now he’s home for 3 months.

I seized the h”ll out if those days and enjoying the slower pace without running from game to game and school event to school event. I do work- so mom wasn’t my entire identity.

[Anonymous]

It’s transitions, closing a door on a chapter.

[Anonymous]

I have a child in middle school and one in elementary at a K-12 and I can tell things fall off dramatically in the middle school. I can see people in the parents association attempting to engage the high school parents, but I can also understand that many of them probably feel as though they've done their time. If you want to get re-engaged, I encourage you to do it. I think many people would love to connect. But, I can also see myself when my kids are in high school just keeping contact with the parents I actually like and letting the younger folks "do their time".

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have a child in middle school and one in elementary at a K-12 and I can tell things fall off dramatically in the middle school. I can see people in the parents association attempting to engage the high school parents, but I can also understand that many of them probably feel as though they've done their time. If you want to get re-engaged, I encourage you to do it. I think many people would love to connect. But, I can also see myself when my kids are in high school just keeping contact with the parents I actually like and letting the younger folks "do their time".

That’s reassuring. I think I want to just focus on the handful of people who I really like, but I felt like I’d messed up by getting to this place. Now it seems more normal. I might dip into a few things here and there but I actually feel relieved now that I have permission to have some distance.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We had a big school event tonight and I came home feeling sad and unsettled. My child is in the older 1/3rd of grades at our school and suddenly at school events I don’t know many people and realized that a lot of the people I used to socialize with at school events have kids who have graduated and/or are about to, so they’ve moved on.

It felt really weird to be in a crowd where most of the parents were more than a decade younger than me. I didn’t recognize the majority of the crowd and have never overlapped with them at volunteer commitments or activities.

Parents of kids who have gone through many grades at their school, talk me through this. I thought it would be gradual but it wasn’t. One day I was helping the with the preschool Halloween parties and crafts and lunches and Girl Scouts, and now I’m just popping in for l teacher conferences twice a year. I’m that old person at school cocktail nights that only know a table’s worth of families. It feels like I messed up and dropped a ball somewhere, but I was just following my child’s growing independence.

Should I try to re-engage at my kid’s school, or is this a natural progression and something I just need to accept? I feel sad and am wondering if I should have worked harder to stay connected. We only have one kid so I think that my parent friends with younger kids are experiencing this quite differently.

It is never too late! Volunteer, volunteer, volunteer - even for small things and show up if your school hosts parent coffees or events. You will get reconnected quickly!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Last club sport tryout this spring. Hooray!!! My Youngest a rising HS Senior. I enjoyed it all and was present for all of it, but surprised I haven’t been as emotional as I cried at all the “ending” events in K, elementary and Ms graduations- ha. I did not at all at my firstborn’s HS graduation it was such a proud, exciting and happy moment. I used to cry just thinking about that moment and then it came and I was just so happy and proud. And he killed it in college this year. He will be home May 8th already. Seeing it’s not “the end” and how much (due to long school breaks) we saw him - I’m not upset. It feels like we just moved him in and now he’s home for 3 months.

I seized the h”ll out if those days and enjoying the slower pace without running from game to game and school event to school event. I do work- so mom wasn’t my entire identity.

I love this perspective!