The End of an Era (That We Didn't Know We'd Miss So Much)

A few weeks ago, we dropped our oldest off at middle school for the first time, and along with that, we reached a big milestone: for the first time since becoming parents, we are no longer walking all of our children to school.

Our oldest started sixth grade this year, and his new school is across town. It's only about a ten-minute drive away, but because we’re used to walking our kids two minutes down the road, it feels much farther. It’s far enough that walking isn't an option, and far enough that our mornings look different now.

You see, for years, school started with a walk. Backpacks on shoulders, water bottles swinging, the familiar route through the neighborhood. We would spend the few minutes walking down the road talking about how we think the day is going to go or go over their spelling words if they had a test that day. They tell us what’s on their minds that are somehow full on energy at seven in the morning. It’s one of my favorite times of the whole day.

Now, every morning, we load into the car and join the carpool line.

The carpool line! Omg. A thing that has existed for as long as schools have existed, yet it feels completely foreign to us. We still laugh about how out of our element we are. We don't know the unwritten rules. We're still figuring out where to pull forward and when to merge. And why does getting there two minutes sooner cause you to wait 10 minutes longer? Everyone else seems like they've been doing this for years.

Meanwhile, we're sitting there thinking, Remember when his school was three blocks away?

We were spoiled!! Truly spoiled. I don't think I realized just how much until it was gone.

After we drop him off, we drive back across town and then walk our younger two to elementary school, so we still get that walking to school time with them. But the contrast is impossible to miss. One child disappears through the doors of a middle school that suddenly feels very big, and the other two still reach for our hands crossing the street.

It's like living in two parenting seasons at once. Part of me misses those old walks with all three kids. But another part of me has been thinking about something I've learned over the past few weeks: As parents, we spend so much time trying to hold onto stages that we sometimes miss the gift hidden inside the next one. I wanted to keep walking him to school because that's what we'd always done. Because it was familiar. Because it felt like us.

However, middle school isn't supposed to feel like elementary school. The distance is the point. And not just the physical distance across town, but the gradual widening of his world. He's making his own friends and finding his own way around a new building. He’s navigating lockers and schedules and all the tiny moments that add up to growing up. And our job isn't to keep him close forever, no matter how badly we want to. Our job is to walk beside him for a while, and then, little by little, watch him go farther than we can.

The funny thing is that the ten-minute drive has become its own kind of gift.

Without younger siblings talking over him, we've had conversations that probably wouldn't have happened on our old walks. We've talked about teachers, friends, music, funny things that happened during the day. Sometimes we talk the entire drive home. Sometimes we just listen to High School Musical.

The routine has changed, yes, but the connection didn't. It just found a different shape. I still miss those mornings when all three kids walked beside us, and I probably always will. But every season of parenting seems to ask the same thing: can you appreciate what was while still making room for what comes next?

Well, I'm trying my best.

Even if I'm still figuring out the carpool line. 😉