I’m getting used to life without my sons, now both at university. I don’t know if replacing them with extensive building works helped, but it certainly provides distraction (it would be uncharitable to say “and a comparable level of mess”, so I won’t). I miss them, but if they’re fine, I’m fine. Either this is denial, or I have the maternal instinct of the leopard tree iguana (which abandons its offspring after 48 hours with a pile of excrement for company), or I’m really well-adjusted. I’m pretty sure it’s option one: it still feels temporary. My husband is sadder, I think because he has understood this is the start of their one-way path away from us.
I do worry about keeping in touch, though. It’s hard to gauge what is appropriate: is it a massive downer to get a message asking how their day went, or does silence feel like I’m happily putting their bedrooms on Airbnb? I could request a weekly call, but I’m resistant to being that predictable, even though as a parent, it is quite literally my job.
So I stick to WhatsApp, drafting then deleting messages, trying to appear super-casual. I occasionally send a titbit I hope might be interesting (a bargain buffet recommendation, an imminent meteor shower or something intriguing I’ve read – does this sound as tragic as it feels?). They rarely reply, which is fair enough, though I did think the dog out of his mind on opiates after dental surgery was pretty funny.
Mainly I am a bespoke Google and budget Mrs Beeton, offering streaming service passwords and the three digits on the back of my credit card; dealing with whether can you substitute potato for sweet potato, how to rescue a burnt pan and send a parcel, and whether that whole whites and colour wash thing is for real. “No, it is not OK to use pliers instead of tweezers to remove a tick” was not a message I expected to send. “Whichever of you ordered ‘French man fancy dress + moustache and onion garland’, there’s a problem with delivery” felt more predictable. I asked the elder not to join a cult but he told me if he did, “it’s your fault for not raising me right” (true). Requests for updates on the houseplant situation are the only time I get evasive: there is no good news to report here in the botanical murderdome.
Occasionally, I get an unsolicited crumb of information as a treat. Exasperated pictures of kitchen chaos from the elder, or shocking housemate meals (“That’s a tin of frankfurters, two tins of tuna, a tin of sweetcorn and he made the pasta by putting it in cold water in the microwave for 30 minutes” was the caption on one that really needed a trigger warning). The younger is more circumspect, so a blurry picture of Brian Cox is a thrill.
This whole phase reminds me vividly of my mother. She died nearly 20 years ago, but moving house in 2018, I found a cache of letters she sent me when I was at university. It was a time capsule of maternal love: full of affection and, I now see, carefully disguised concern (I was miserable). Without the comfort of digital messaging, she wrote constantly: swift notes on parchment-thin paper, proper four-pagers and colourful postcards. I see her picking out titbits of news like I do, relating efforts to confine the escaped hamster to its cage with freezer-bag ties and the grisliest lowlights from my sister’s drama group show. She often slipped in cash (“This is about the price of a manicure,” one note reads; another “Spend on something nice – an art book? – rather than adding it to the kitty”). She also sent photocopies of poems, and flowers: one florist’s card reads “You’re blooming too”, quite heartbreakingly.
It’s what we do as our kids move inexorably away from us: find small ways to put our love in their pigeonholes, pockets and phones. When my father went off to study in London, his mother, my granny, sent him a box of bluebells from their Forest of Dean home, freshly picked, still fragrant and wrapped in damp cotton wool. What will my bluebells be? I’m still trying to work it out.
Emma Beddington is a Guardian columnist
