On May 4th (may the fourth be with you) my daughter graduated from her smallish liberal arts school in Florida. It was a wonderful experience, made all the more meaningful because she did not have a high school graduation as she was the class of 2020. COVID ruined that for her, as well as so many other senior year experiences. I thought about that as I watched all the other families there celebrating, knowing that this was a first for them too, and wondering how these past four years have impacted them and the decisions they’ve made.
As a family lawyer, I am involved with so many families and the decisions they make about their children, but only until the children reach the age of 18. After that, those kids are generally outside the purview of the courts and, therefore, outside my reach as a family lawyer. But no parent stops being a parent when their child reaches the age of 18. Quite frankly, parenting gets even more complicated when your child reaches that legal age of adulthood. You have to figure out where the lines are: Do they need me to step in here? Am I Pushing them too much? Do they understand how credit cards work and the impact of credit card debt? Should I weigh in on where they should go to college, to graduate school, or for a job? An 18-year-old heading to college and a 22-year-old graduating from college are making big complicated decisions that can have major implications for their future, and they are doing so without the real world perspective that we, as the old people in their lives, have.
When my daughter was in high school and struggling with social relationships, I told her that none of it mattered: that when she left high school she had total control over the people she would remain in contact with, that anything anyone ever said about her would mean nothing, and that she would be able to go to college being whoever she wanted to be. She has thanked me for that advice many times over because it allowed her to not be bogged down (or be at least be less affected) by the social ills that teenagers and young adults face today.
But during these past few months, as she completed her senior thesis project (an amazing product development that I couldn’t even fathom doing – she does have more artistic talent in her pinky than I have in totality) and she thought about where she wanted to go after graduation, I realized that she has had her own life experiences that have molded her and she also needs to have more life experiences so she can learn for herself. I had to remind myself that the world I graduated into was a very different world than the one she is graduating into. I had to stop giving advice and instead provide encouragement. I have faith she will figure out what her next step is. I hope, as most parents do, that she will find a path that excites her and allows her to be the person she wants to be.
But this stepping back is hard as a parent and a family lawyer because I have a lot of opinions and a lot of advice I want to give her. I know what I want for her and where I want her to be (preferably driving distance from my home). If she wants to hear from me, I will always be here to give advice, hold her up, and support her. But right now, as hard as it is, I know that she needs the space to make her own decisions and find her own way. She truly is one amazing kid and I can’t wait to see what she does next.