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Parents are always parents, but the role of parents changes as children age. Being a parent to a four-year-old is very different from being a parent to a twenty-year-old, nonetheless, parents do have that very specific role, responsibility and relationship with their child regardless of the child's (or grown son's or daughter's) age.

With grown children (now 30, 25, and 22), I've discovered that I grew as a mother as my children grew. Based on my own experience with my three children I've come to believe that the letting go process occurs quite naturally alongside the child's maturation process. Even though kids can appear to be quite grown-up once they get into their teens, the fact is their brains are not finished developing until they're in their early- to mid-twenties. Their bones are finished growing at around age 25. What I discovered, though, was that it took until each of my two oldest kids reached 25 for me to truly feel that the letting-go process had become complete. My theory is that, left to occur as Nature planned it, parents will naturally let go a little at a time as the child grows and have completely let go by the time the child reaches age 25.

When my first son was five and in kindergarten the class was planning a field trip to a museum in Boston, MA, which is about 30 miles away from where we lived. Although most of the other mothers had no problems with this trip, and although the school people obviously thought it was a great idea, I was uncomfortable about allowing my five-year-old to take the 30-mile bus trip down a very busy highway to the museum. I had been to the zoo once when kindergarten teachers lost one of their students temporarily. To me, five-year-olds are still a little too "spacy" and a little too "adult-dependent" and still a little too on the helpless side in some ways to go on that type of field trip. I was fine with the field trip to the circus in the next town over and field trips to the library and parks in our own town. Of course, I questioned whether I was not "letting go" when I should. After all, the teachers and other mothers had no problem with this trip. There was just something uncomfortable about it for me.

When the same son was in second grade a similar trip was planned by the school This time I had no problem whatsoever allowing him to go. Seven-year-olds are a little more sure of themselves, less helpless, and sharper. I was surprised to realize that I hadn't needed to worry about never being able to let go.

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