Those m'baby's leavin' blues.

• Author: Puterbaugh, Dolores T.
• Position: PARTING THOUGHTS - Young people leaving home for college - Essay

LATE SUMMER MEANS recent high school graduates leaving for school, or the military, or for that first (usually shared) apartment. Parents will be relieved, and cry, and talk about how happy they are that the child was accepted into college or trade school, enlisted, has landed a job, etc. Younger siblings will make jokes about stealing the bigger bedroom or making off with whatever was left behind.

There will be cakes and cookouts. It is all sweetness and light--and a touch of bittersweet. Maybe; maybe not. Anger and fear, those first cousins in the pain category, often are simmering under the surface and frequently erupting in typical, covert ways.

One of the dirty secrets of family life is the scorching resentment the first child to leave the nest often engenders. That normal shift into the next stage should be welcomed, but it is not uncommon for the parents to be angry and the siblings to feel rejected and abandoned. The negative feelings will get stirred up with each visit home, and the child who left will be the victim of simmering negativity, however it is expressed. At worst, there will be years of alienation, sometimes only alleviated when the other kids have left, built their own lives, and finally understand: it never was abandonment in the first place.

I have taken to warning parents about this in therapy. They may find themselves angry and impatient with the child preparing to leave. They become critical, resentful, and demanding. "You should spend more time with the family; you'll be gone soon enough," the parent complains. The young person complies; the parent is impossible to please; and the child resorts to evasive maneuvers to avoid repeated doses of disapproval. Frankly, sometimes family therapy at this stage can feel like marital therapy does when people have been unhappy for far too long before seeking help. The resentment and bitterness have gone septic and it will take drastic measures to right the situation.

Of course, a good mother does not want to think of herself as the kind of person who will be hateful and spiteful towards the person she loves most. That does not even make sense, except the pain is visceral, not logical, and, after all, teenagers are capable of doing things that warrant some sort of annoyance. It is a matter of degree--and there are other complicating factors. Mothers who find themselves invisible may experience an odd sort of jealousy towards their daughters, mixed with maternal pride and...