Separation Anxiety: How Do You Deal When the Youngest Child Starts School?

Tomorrow I become an empty nester of sorts. Granted, my kids are not grown and leaving home (I already rue that day and it won't happen for at least another decade), but the youngest is starting kindergarten in the morning, and frankly, I'm against it.

Seriously, he's a baby. Well, he's my baby, and kindergarten is where big kids go. It's where big kids go and grow so much bigger. I don't need that.

I've been working from home his entire life while my wife has put in long hours outside of the house. The boy and I have spent some quality time together. Also, quantity. My coffee breaks have been taken in parks. My workplace gossip has involved talking tools and dancing penguins. Business casual has been pantless whenever possible. He has spent years climbing on my computer, spilling juice on my invoices, and stabbing my deadlines to death with green plastic forks while screaming songs of sixpence to all within earshot. He has stretched my workweek by hours and hours, my patience all the farther. And he has done it with a laugh and a smile that were as contagious as they were needed. He has been my little carrier monkey of force-fed happiness.

I don't think days long and quiet will fill that void, although my work, in theory, should improve. So there's that. Faster, better, quieter, uninspired work. The editors will be thrilled.

However, he is ready. This is his moment. He'll miss me and our time together, but more importantly he will use it to propel him towards new adventures and experiences. He craves an attention that I, as a victim of circumstance and paychecks, was not always able to provide. He needs challenges and friends his own age, and a better way to spend his time than bouncing between busy work and a busy worker.

He will start kindergarten in the morning with his brother three grades ahead, and me standing in the distance, waving.