Last weekend I went to see Luke Combs with my son.

I was not supposed to be there.

His friend’s father had invited him on a guys’ weekend. Golf at their vacation home, Luke Combs on Saturday night, the whole thing his treat. He called me to tell me about it, and somewhere in the middle of that conversation, he said:

“Mom, come with us, I’m sure they won’t mind. Just buy a ticket.”

So I did.

And standing in that crowd on Saturday night, surrounded by my son and his friend and his father, singing along to songs I only half knew, I kept thinking: how did I get here? Not at the concert. In this life. With this kid, who still wants his mother around.

I don’t want her taking the subway by herself late at night. I don’t want her walking by herself late at night. And I certainly do not want her to be reliant on a date, especially on a first date, to get herself home.

One Friday evening, my father told my youngest brother that the two of them would be getting up early the next morning to do yard work. It was not a negotiation. It was information.

That same night, my brother told my parents he was going to a friend’s house. What he did not mention was that the friend’s house had been replaced, for the evening, by a high school party happening just around the corner from our home. He went. He proceeded to get very drunk.

The argument for breastfeeding has two parts: it's great for the baby's immune system, and it promotes bonding. Both are true. Neither one is the whole picture.

With each of my kids, I breastfed for three weeks. Just long enough to give them the colostrum, that early milk loaded with antibodies that formula can't replicate. Three weeks, and then I stopped.

Because I hated it.

And my babies knew. Babies pick up on everything. There is nothing bonding about a mother who is tense and miserable and watching the clock.

What I loved was not just the company. It was the car itself, transformed into something alive. I loved the laughter that would spill over the seats. I loved the stories being told in the back, the ones I was only half meant to hear. I loved the group games on long highways, the debates about music, the moments when everyone would go quiet because the right song came on.

Over the years, wagons gave way to minivans, and minivans gave way to SUVs, and those gave way to other SUVs. Each one carried us on weekend road trips and family adventures. Each one collected its own archaeology of family life: lunch boxes wedged under the seat, lacrosse sticks poking out from the trunk, jackets balled up in the corners, extra shoes that seemed to multiply on their own. And each time I traded one in, I felt a twinge of something. Sadness, maybe. Nostalgia. Like I was trading in a piece of the story along with the car.

My son had fallen in love with his sister’s world. Tailgating. Championship football. The whole atmosphere. So, his list was populated almost entirely with the “it” schools that have been dominating college admissions conversations since COVID: UNC Chapel Hill, Clemson, University of Maryland College Park, University of Florida, University of Tennessee, Georgia Tech, University of Georgia, Auburn, and similar schools.

Here is the complication. His freshman and sophomore grades were good, not great. After transferring to a private school, his grades became exceptional, but those early years still appeared on his transcript. His test scores were mediocre, and when the option existed, he applied test-optional. He was applying to engineering programs, which tend to be more selective. On paper, it was an uphill climb.

I Had a Life to Live

On my days off, I wanted lazy mornings, workouts, golf, and time on the water. I did not want to spend my limited free hours cleaning up after people who were perfectly capable of cleaning up after themselves.

I took care of everything when my kids were small because they needed me to. But at some point, they stopped being small. And once that happened, there was no good reason for me to keep doing everything for them.

If they wanted me free to do fun activities with them, they were going to have to help.

I had a version of the same conversation with each of my kids the night before freshman year. It went something like this:

“My job over the next four years is to make sure you don’t screw up your life. When you get to 11th grade and start deciding what comes next, I want you to have options and no regrets.

“If your grades drop, I will intervene. If I see risky behavior, I will intervene. Other than that, I will not intervene. I am here to support you in whatever you need.

“Respect your father and me. We do not ask for much, but when we ask for something, do it.

“Keep us apprised of your whereabouts. That is not negotiable. Tell me where you are, what you are doing, who you are with, what time you expect to be home, and, if you are not coming home, where you are sleeping. A quick text is all it takes. If you go silent, I will assume the worst and find you.

“The cleaning person comes on Thursday mornings. Please have everything off your floor so he can vacuum, and all food and dishes out of your room before he arrives. It is not his job to clean up your mess; the rest is your responsibility.

“Enjoy high school.”

"You're so lucky. You never had to fight with your kids in the morning."

It was a little before midnight, and I was about to finish up and go when my phone lit up with a text from my daughter. She is twenty-five years old and lives five to six hours away. This is what it said:

"Mom, I was going to come home and surprise you for Mother's Day, but when I texted Dad, he said a surprise might not be a good idea in case you had plans. Are you free? I can meet you somewhere halfway on Sunday for brunch and then come home for the week and work remotely."

The Quitter Accusation

She pulled me aside and let me know, in no uncertain terms, that I was making a mistake. I was teaching my daughter to be a quitter. I had paid good money for those classes, and I should make her see it through to the end. What kind of lesson was I sending by letting her just walk away?

"Wait until I tell my mother about this."

The Two Choices

I saw it clearly. I had exactly two options.

Option one: try to calm her down. Engage with the tantrum. Comfort her, reason with her, try to bring her back to herself. Give her attention — even negative attention — until she settled.

Option two: let her cry it out without an audience. Set her down somewhere safe, walk away, and let her body do what it actually needed to do.

A friend said something to me recently that stopped me in my tracks.

"You know what you are?" she said. "You're the poster child for Mel Robbins' 'let it go.'"

She's probably right. I just didn't know that's what I was doing at the time.