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	<title>Ridiculous Thoughts &#187; Empty nest syndrome</title>
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		<title>Balancing act</title>
		<link>http://www.ukmelia.com/ridiculousthoughts/2009/10/07/balancing-act/</link>
		<comments>http://www.ukmelia.com/ridiculousthoughts/2009/10/07/balancing-act/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 07 Oct 2009 21:19:54 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Melia</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Blather]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Empty nest syndrome]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.ukmelia.com/ridiculousthoughts/?p=706</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[I&#8217;m trying to balance being a good parent who lets their child leave the nest, and a starting-to-worry parent who hasn&#8217;t heard from her child in an unusual amount of time right now. I know what you&#8217;ll say. &#8220;C&#8217;mon Steph, she&#8217;s all grown up now and probably just busy with her college life stuff. Cut [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><span class="drop">I</span>&#8217;m trying to balance being a good parent who lets their child leave the nest, and a starting-to-worry parent who hasn&#8217;t heard from her child in an unusual amount of time right now.</p>
<p>I know what you&#8217;ll say. &#8220;C&#8217;mon Steph, she&#8217;s all grown up now and probably just busy with her college life stuff. Cut her some slack.&#8221; Believe me, I want to. I try to encourage her in that direction after hearing she&#8217;s finding her downtime from classes to be a bit boring. I asked if there are any club she could join or activities she could either take part in or go and watch. I know she would like a part-time job and maybe she&#8217;s out hunting one up.</p>
<p>But not a day has gone by since she left that there aren&#8217;t at least 2 or 3 text messages throughout the day. maybe an email or two (to say gnight usually) and once a week a phone call. I don&#8217;t think that&#8217;s too much, do you? Am I tugging too hard on the strings? I try to let her contact me when she needs me and no matter how many times I want to text and just say hello or see how she&#8217;s doing, I stop myself and think that I need to let her be.</p>
<p>But as I&#8217;m writing this, I haven&#8217;t heard a peep out of her since her last facebook post last night. No email, she&#8217;s not answering my two texts and at first I reckoned she was just busy but as time passes the horrible things going through my mind are getting worse and now I just want to know how you other parents out there deal with this? How did parents deal with this before Facebook and Twitter and cell phones? Am I just TOO dependent on all this tech?</p>
<p>I expect a certain amount of &#8216;well if you weren&#8217;t a facebook-stalking mom, you wouldn&#8217;t be worried right now.&#8217; And maybe that&#8217;s true. But while I don&#8217;t consider myself that extreme when it comes to keeping tabs on her (we have both talked about the level of connectivity we have online and what she&#8217;s comfy with and so far it&#8217;s not been an issue. I really do try to giver her her space.) I DO worry that the level of connection I do have with her is leading me to worry unnecessarily when goes out of touch for a while.</p>
<p>I&#8217;m sure she&#8217;s just fine.</p>
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