Why I Am Not Taking My Daughter To University

A-level results came out this week. This 'new to Substack' piece was first written in August last year. It's about my experience of results and a child heading off to university...

I’ve been dealing with the anticipatory grief for a while now. When the UCAS¹ application was submitted, the conditional offer received, the revision escalated, the exam papers were completed, I guess I knew what I might have to face but it was only on a Thursday morning in August when we held our breaths as she clicked to access the results which would determine her future, that I had to accept it was definitely happening. When she sobbed with relief, I realised just how much had been hinging on this. This was the path she had chosen, her heart set on studying on another land mass. How dare I let my feelings get in the way of all she had dreamed of and worked so hard for.

I’d listened to everyone else’s stories. As I shared that Alice hoped to head to Edinburgh to study accounting, all those who had been on the journey before me gave me that same knowing look. “It’s hard,” they said. I heard about howling in cafés, weeping in corridors, blubbering in hotel rooms. I heard so much about trying not to show it, suppressing the emotions until the inevitable breakdown when the time eventually came to say goodbye. There was that last hug where they couldn’t bear to let go, the shaky wave as they drove off and inhaled one final, lingering glimpse, the long, silent, sobbing journey back to the boat. Parting seemed almost unbearable. “But, the worst is yet to come,” one mum told me, “that first Sunday dinner without them”. “I couldn’t eat,” she said, “I had to go upstairs and cry into his duvet”.

I became fixated on roast potatoes. I thought about our Sundays when the six of us sit down together round the table and consume one large bag of spuds, the leftovers on the worktop, gradually disappearing, dunked in cold gravy. I could only picture Alice eating the last one. “How about this Sunday, you just sit in your room and we’ll practice you not being here?” I said. Maybe once September came, we’d switch to mash or embrace dauphinoise - keep the roast potatoes until she returned at Christmas. As the week of her departure neared, I suggested we have our Sunday roast in a restaurant. But when we got there, they had run out. I slightly broke. I couldn’t swallow the pasta I had ordered as an alternative.

“The first one is the hardest,” said a veteran of children flying the nest. “It’s just like childbirth,” I thought, “sixteen hours of labour, a vacuum delivery, an excruciating tearing, then the second slips out painlessly in a carpark”. “By the time you get to the fourth,” they joked, “you’ll be leaving her off at the airport to make her own way there”.

“We need to do this differently,” I told my husband. “These stories are killing me”. We had barely any time to process her grades before travel had to be booked, accommodation arranged. As she filled in forms and asked what bank account to use for direct debits, I made my decision. I would not be taking my daughter to university. It was an opportunity to bring the respective strengths of our parenting partnership into play. One of us had carried her for nine months, the other was pragmatic and less emotional. There would be two flights, one-way for her and a return for her dad. There would be no shots of her hanging over a railing somewhere in the middle of the Irish Sea. She’d stuff what she could into a couple of suitcases and ‘click and collect’ the rest. I’d visit at the start of October. She’d be settled in by then.

As we count down to her leaving on Saturday, everything is sepia-coated, tinged with sadness. I find myself staring into space. I am displaced, living in surreal days. I crave the familiar. I want to be propelled along by her excitement but I am falling into constant nostalgia, the last this, the last that, the last lunch with her grandparents, the last catch-up with her best friend. I am being as practical as I can - sorting out a three-month supply of contact lenses, a dental appointment, a haircut. I am watching her constantly, soaking up her presence, seeing the part she plays in our family with fresh eyes. Who will plait her sisters’ hair, prepare them for school photographs, for parties, for tennis matches? Who will drive them to McDonalds when they suddenly fancy an evening McFlurry? Who will co-ordinate them, give them advice, help them with their Maths homework? I think of the vouchers she organised from four coffee shops for my birthday. “Now you have no job, mummy, you can meet people in different places”. As the eldest, I sense her embracing freedom, relishing the idea of a life unencumbered by the demands of three younger siblings.

“It’s like she’s setting up her first home,” I say to my husband. I give opinions on towels, toilet brushes, quilts. There are endless lists - pillows, saucepans, a bread knife, an extension lead. She is accessorising with cushions and a diffuser. There are multiple browser tabs open - John Lewis, Argos, H&M. She’s ticked off the trip to IKEA. Her sisters went too. They ate meatballs while she filled her trolley. I wonder will she need the seventeen-piece Tupperware set. “Should I order a throw?” she checks. “What about a garlic press?”. “Wine glasses?”. I remember the advice from other parents. “Don’t let her accumulate too much stuff. We’re paying a fortune in storage”.

“I’m planning to join the gym,” she says. “Are you going to be a completely new person in Edinburgh?” I ask.

I find I can cry anywhere. It doesn’t take much to set me off. I bump into her old nursery teacher in a swimming pool changing room. As I stand there dripping, tears pricking my eyes, she puts her hand on my arm. “Can I tell you what helped me?” she says. “Figure out what’s worrying you most and do something about it”. She was concerned her daughter would starve so she sent regular Tesco deliveries, included the favourite foods her budget wouldn’t stretch to. I realise I’m not worried about Alice’s diet, I’ve bought her Tin Can Magic, ‘simple, delicious recipes using pantry staples’. Instead, my fears are off the scale. My mind can’t go there. I’m worried about her drink being spiked, the walk to halls from campus in the dark, those who might exploit her, most men, the dangerous world she lives in. I don’t know if I will ever sleep again. I don’t think I appreciated all my girls under one roof enough. As we walked the dog, I broached some topics. “You need to be alert,” I said, “and make sure you keep your ‘Find my iPhone’ on”. “What will you do if you are homesick?” I asked. “I’ll cross that bridge if I come to it,” she replied.

Motherhood is only ever about preparing them to separate from you. Every fledgling step, every milestone, every stage has been leading towards this. A scene from the film Lady Bird² comes back to me. It has been deposited somewhere in my brain until I needed it. Christine (Lady Bird³) is leaving for college, her parents are dropping her at the airport. We have observed her fractious relationship with her mother. She takes down the posters, strips the fairy lights from her bedroom walls, paints over her childish drawings. There is an inescapability about it all, the natural concluding of her childhood, enabling the transition into adulthood. I ask Alice if she plans to tidy her room before she leaves, return the parcels lying on the floor, pick up some of the clothes. She hands me some things for her memory box - her school tie and scarf, certificates, the place setting from her sixth form formal, the ‘bon voyage’ cards. I try not to dwell on their symbolism. I set them in the garage. Endings and beginnings.

As Lady Bird’s father hauls her case out of the boot, he slips an envelope into the pocket. Her mother drives off. Parking is too expensive. We see the exact moment when she regrets her decision, changes her mind. She turns, goes back, but it’s too late. I am watching it on repeat, that heartbreaking view of father and daughter in the rear window. I am Laurie Metcalf. I am wondering if I have made the right decision.

“It’s ok,” says Lady Bird’s dad. “She’ll be back. She’ll come back”.

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P.S. The scene from Lady Bird still gives me a lump in the throat even though some of you may know what happened next… If not, do read…

1. UCAS (The Universities and Colleges Admissions Service) is a UK-based organisation who manage the application process for British universities.

2. Lady Bird Airport Scene

3. Played by Saoirse Ronan.