GRADUATION ISN'T JUST ABOUT THEM—PARENTING TEENS, ADULT KIDS, AND LETTING GO | EP. 255
Welcome to the Almost Empty Nest Podcast, where we moms of teens and college kids reframe what letting go really means to feel more connected, confident, and at peace. I'm your host, Master Coach Jennifer Collins.
Graduation season can bring up so much more than pride and excitement for us moms, parenting teens, and adult kids. One minute you're celebrating your child's accomplishments, and the next you're wondering, did I do enough? Are they ready? And why is letting go so hard? In this episode, I'm talking about the hidden emotional experience we moms have as we watch our kids face these big milestone moments.
I'll talk about why our brains keep pulling us into the future, trying to make sure everything turns out okay, and how understanding your mindset can help you feel more present and grounded so that you can truly experience the joy and possibility of this moment. Let's dive in.
Hello, my friend.
It is graduation season. And for those moms who are days or maybe weeks away from their child's graduation, whether that's from high school or college, this time of year can feel like a lot. There's the sense that there are so many celebrations to juggle.
You've got the school graduation and everything leading up to it. You've got family parties and friend parties and all sorts of different festivities that mark this really momentous occasion in your child's life. And I know for many of the women I work with who are right in the midst of this season, they'll often tell me it feels like a bit of a tsunami, so many things to do, so many events to keep track of.
And at the same time, they're also feeling the emotional weight of all of it. There's this desire to be present, to really soak in these moments and feel the joy of it. And yet, you can already feel that pull away from being present.
Because as much as you want to stay in the moment, your mind starts to drift ahead. You start thinking about what this all means, that your baby's about to leave home, or that they're stepping into a phase where they may not quite know what they're doing yet, or what their next chapter is going to look like. You could also be focused on what your next chapter is going to look like.
And it's hard to stay grounded in the moment when your mind is focused on the unknown. Because your brain wants certainty. It wants to know that everything's going to work out okay.
And when it can't find that certainty, it keeps pulling you out of the present and into the future, trying to solve for all the variables so you don't have to feel so uncomfortable. And what's also interesting is that graduation season doesn't just affect the moms who are right in the middle of it. It also sparks something in those of us who have a child who's a junior, or even younger, whether that's in high school or college.
There's almost this passing of the guard, where one more class graduating means your child is that much closer. I had this moment last weekend when my son texted me a series of photos of him and his friends at college. They were all wearing red shirts for some reason.
It was just a But the text that came with it said, I'm officially a senior. And I just sat there thinking, how is that even possible? It feels like just yesterday that I dropped him off at college for the first time. I mean, it doesn't feel that long ago that I was watching him walk across the stage at his high school graduation.
When your child's a junior, graduation doesn't feel far away anymore. It starts to feel imminent. And at the same time, it can feel like there's so much that needs to happen between now and that moment when they head into whatever comes next, whether that's going to college or navigating the college process, which is overwhelming and frustrating, or figuring out what comes next after college.
How do they get a job in a world that feels so uncertain? What if they don't even know what they want to do? It's funny because when your child is in high school, you think about how hard it's going to be to let them go. And when your child's graduating from college, you start thinking, what if they come back home? What's it going to look like then? There is just so much unknown. And with that comes so many conflicting emotions.
You can feel proud and excited for your child, and in awe of the fact that you made it here, that they're on the brink of this next chapter. These are huge milestones. Remember how excited you were when your child first learned to walk? And this is something so much bigger.
And yet, even as you feel proud and excited for your child, so genuinely happy for them, in the same moment you can feel this wave of sadness or fear or even a sense of loss that you can't quite explain. You can feel so ready for them to go, and also not ready at all. You can look at them and think, you've got this.
You're ready for whatever comes next. And then five minutes later, you find yourself thinking, are they actually ready? Did I do enough? And it's this constant back and forth between pride and worry, excitement and grief, letting go and wanting to hold on just a little bit longer. And I think this is one of the things that makes the season of motherhood feel so intense, because there's no clean emotional experience of graduation.
In fact, it's layered and messy. And truly, there is no right way to experience it. And yet, if you really stop and pay attention to your experience in these major milestone moments, it raises a really interesting question.
What if your experience of graduation isn't really about your child? I know even saying that feels a little strange, because of course it is about them. They're the ones graduating. They're the ones who have put in the work, who are the ones stepping into this next chapter.
It's their milestone. And yet, if you look at what's actually happening inside of you during this time, the thoughts you're having and the emotions you're feeling, it starts to become clear that there's a lot of this experience that really isn't about them at all. Because think about it.
Why does this feel so emotional for us? And it's different for all of us. Some moms feel incredibly excited, like they can't wait to launch their kids into the world. Some feel devastated, like they're losing something they can't quite put into words.
And many of us feel somewhere in between, proud and excited one moment, and then hit with this wave of sadness or fear in the next. There is no right way to experience this. But just notice how differently we each experience the exact same milestone.
Your child is graduating, but what that means to you, that's where your emotional experience is coming from. And so I want to explore this idea, that graduation is less about what's happening for them, and more about what it's bringing up in you. Because what I see over and over again, both in my own life and in the women I coach, is that these milestones have a way of surfacing things that we're not always consciously aware of.
So let's talk about some of the things our kids' milestones bring up in us. One of them is this realization of just how quickly time is flying by. I mean, those early years of raising kids felt like they moved so slowly.
And then somehow, you look up and you're here. You feel this disbelief, like how did we get here so fast? The truth is, graduation doesn't just mark a milestone in your child's life, it also marks the passage of time in your own life. We're no longer those young moms raising little kids.
We're in midlife. We're launching adults, what I like to think of as baby adults. And we're launching them into the world.
And that naturally brings up a question that we probably haven't asked ourselves for a really long time. What does this next chapter look like for me? Because for so long, your role has been so clearly defined. You were needed.
Your days were structured around your kids. And even as that starts to shift in the high school years, you're still very much in it. But graduation makes that shift undeniable.
There's one less person to cook for, one less schedule to manage, one less presence in your home on a daily basis. Even if they stay regularly connected, it's not the same kind of day-to-day structure that you've been living in for all these years. And that can feel really unsettling, because you start to realize just how much of your time and your identity has been shaped around being needed in that way.
And frankly, even when your kid is in college, you still feel this sense of being needed as a parent. And then you start to look at their college graduation and you're thinking, are they going to end up home, which means one thing for me? Or are they going to be across the country, really far away? And how is that going to impact the amount that I can see them and the type of relationship we're going to have in the future? These major milestones can also bring up something else that feels really uncomfortable, which is really that we have so little control of what comes next for our kids. You can't control their choices.
You can't control their happiness. And even though we know that on some level, there's still this part of us that wants to believe that if we just guide them in the right way, set up the right guardrails, we can make sure everything turns out okay. I've worked with so many moms who reach or are approaching graduation, and they feel this pressure to fit it all in before their big kid leaves, like it's their last chance to get it right.
As we grapple with this loss of control and even influence, realizing that they're going to go out into the world and we're not going to be able to influence them in the same way, losing that brings up a lot of fear and a lot of uncertainty, and sometimes even a sense of helplessness. You can't help but wonder, did I do enough? Did I prepare them enough? Did I do the right things? Are they ready? And if you really let yourself go there, you find yourself replaying moments in your mind, things you said or things you wish you said differently, times you showed up in a way you're proud of, and times when you didn't. You might also think about decisions you made along the way, the schools and the friendships, how you handled certain situations, and you question whether those were the right choices, because now it feels like there's something at stake, like this moment somehow reflects the sum total of all the years that came before it.
And it's almost like graduation becomes this moment where we evaluate ourselves as a mom, not in a conscious, intentional way, but in this quiet, subconscious way where we're constantly asking the question, did I get this right? And our fear is the answer's no. It's almost like we're putting this pressure on ourselves that if our kids are ready, then we did a good job. But if they struggle, or they're not taking advantage of opportunities like they should be, that maybe we didn't do a good job.
And even if we would never say that out loud, it's underneath the surface, making us feel this pressure to fix it. And all of this makes this moment feel so much heavier, because it's not just about them stepping into their life. It can start to feel like a reflection of everything we've done along the way.
And all of that, all of those thoughts about how quickly time passes, about how much is uncertain or out of our control, and whether or not we did this job of parenting right, all of these thoughts carry emotional weight, and they become the lens through which we experience these major milestone moments. And this is what creates your emotional experience. Not the graduation itself, not even the circumstances around what your big kid is doing or not doing, but what all of that brings up in you.
And I think this is really such an important distinction to make, because when we believe that our experience is being created by what's happening for our child, by their graduation, by their choices or their next steps, it makes it feel like everything is happening to us, like we're at the effect of our lives, really like we have to just ride the emotional roller coaster of whatever this moment brings. But when you start to see that your experience is actually being created by what you're thinking about this moment, it opens up an opportunity for you to take power back over your emotional experience. And look, you've probably heard about the power of mindset before.
You've at least heard that age-old advice about looking on the bright side. And it's not that you can't see the possibility of thinking, it's fine, they're going to be great, it's all going to turn out okay, and I just need to let go. We can see these thoughts are possible, but it's not so easy to just flip your mind like a switch.
And there's a really important reason for that. And that's because your brain thinks it's helping you. When your mind jumps to those worst-case scenarios, when it creates that urge to hold on to control, or when it tells you that you're running out of time, when you're analyzing and replaying conversations, believe it or not, it actually comes from a mind that is working exactly as it was designed to work.
Your brain is simply trying to protect you. It's trying to make sure that your child is okay, and that you're okay. So it's working really hard to try to prepare you and protect you.
It's trying to think through every possible scenario, and trying to anticipate what could go wrong. Your brain even tries to make sense of everything that's happened up until this point. If something's wrong, there must be a reason.
Because truly, your mind's instinct is to think that if it can just figure it all out, find the danger and avoid it, or locate the mistake and repair it, then you won't have to feel the pain anymore. And this is simply our minds on autopilot, my friend. But it can happen so often that we tell ourselves something is wrong that this is happening.
But the truth is, this is your very normal, healthy human brain in its default setting. The problem is, and I'm sure you already know this on some level, but the problem is that our brain's default setting pulls you out of your life. It pulls you out of this moment, the one you want to be present for.
And it pulls you into a future that only exists in your head, or into a past that you can't change. And all of that thinking, all of that effort to get it right, or to make sense of it, to make sure everything's going to be okay, doesn't actually create peace. Instead, it creates pressure and anxiety, and this feeling that I need to do something, or I need to fix something, I need to make sure this turns out right.
But notice right now, in this moment, your life is happening. Whatever that reality looks like, your child graduating, about to start their senior year, or freshman year, or whatever comes next for them, the circumstances of your life are exactly what they are in this moment. Are you here, right now, present for the reality of what is? Or are you wishing it were different? Are you focused on what could go wrong? Or what you're sure went wrong before? Because here's the thing, it might be true that life doesn't feel the way you want it to feel right now.
There may be uncertainty, or sadness. There may be things you wish were easier or different than they are. And it's so natural to think that if you could just figure things out, or guide your child in the right way, or prevent certain outcomes, that then you would feel better.
But that's not actually where peace comes from. Peace doesn't come from controlling your child's future, and it doesn't come from making sure they don't struggle, or getting everything right before they leave. In fact, you can exhaust yourself trying, and you will still never really know if you've been successful.
But what is in your power is how you relate to what's happening. So here's your invitation, not to fix whatever's happening, not to feel the need to figure it all out and make sure everything turns out okay, but to get curious, to notice the thoughts that are creating the pressure, or the anxiety, or the sadness. Because when you see them clearly, you create space.
And in that space, you get to be here, present for this moment, exactly as it is. And I want to be really honest with you about something. This is not something most of us know how to do on our own, because your brain is so practiced in these patterns, so convincing in the way it tells its stories, that when you're inside of it, it just feels true.
It feels like you need to think about it this way, like you need to figure it out. And that's exactly why coaching can become so powerful, because it can be hard to just hear a concept on a podcast and try to apply it to your real life. My Mom 2.0 Collective Program gives you a space to bring your real, messy, in-the-moment thinking and have it gently reflected back to you.
In this group experience, you also get to hear other moms say the exact thing you've been thinking and realize, oh, this isn't just me. This is simply how our minds work. And inside that space, week after week, you start to see the impact of your mindset and how to shift into a more powerful one intentionally.
My friend, it's graduation season, and if you're feeling a bit lost or anxious as you navigate this big transitional moment, you are not alone. But you do have the power within you to become the woman who can navigate the season of motherhood no longer feeling like life is happening to you, but that you are able to embrace your life with love, compassion, confidence, and self-trust. In these milestone moments, I know it's so easy to want to hold on tighter, but what if this moment is inviting you to grow, to trust in what you've done and who you're becoming? Because this next chapter isn't just theirs.
It's yours, too. Until next time.
If you enjoyed this episode, I'd love for you to check out my next free masterclass. There's a link in the show notes. You have more power than you think, my friend.
