Transition

My father didn’t concern himself too much with why things were, he just focused on that they were. Emotion was not a mitigating circumstance. Things were dealt with by an absolute hand. It was common practice in his era of parenting.

Parents threw kids into life’s proverbial pool and said Swim! And if you didn’t swim, you drowned. There were no life jackets.

The word “transition” did not exist in their vocabulary. There were no PTA meetings or books dedicated to easing children from one stage of life into another.

But my generation was different.

We listened for hours and worried incessantly about our children’s transition: primary school to elementary school; elementary school to middle school; middle school to high school; and high school to college.

Our goal was to make the meeting of new worlds seamless.

And for the most part it worked—our children were allowed one foot in the former, and one foot in the now. It enabled them to not be shocked by new adventure. Life may not have exactly been seamless, but it was a whole lot less traumatic than in our day.

And so we churned out children with the expectation that bridges would always be there for them. They expected safety nets and speed bumps and yield signs.

But we forgot the most important transition of all—college to life.

At the end of our kids’ living in a protected academic and social bubble for four years we catapult them into real life with no helpers no guidance counselors and no guard rails. We expect them to fly without a lesson. And we are shocked when they are resistant or timid or ill-prepared.

We revert to being our parents-- except that is not who we have been for the last 22 years.

And so parents and children both cohabitate and flounder together in our own directionless transition post college.

Because no one—not even Dr. Phil--- told us what to do. There are no more PTA meetings to address the issue. Parents and children find themselves up the creek without a paddle. The boat is rocking and we cannot stop its swing.

 But there is a voice calling out from the shore. We hear our fathers say God dammit--- just get out and swim already!

So we do. And to our surprise, none of us drown. And we left wondering what would have been if we had been just a touch more like the generation that preceded us. We realize easing in makes things too easy.

We think Maybe my father knew much more than I ever gave him credit for.