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Alex Witchel
Freshman Orientation

By the time he left we still weren’t ready, which makes no sense at all. You spend four years of angst with a kid who’s trying to get into college, and once he does, what are you supposed to do, tell him to stay home?

My husband, Frank, and I figured that once Simon, my younger stepson, actually left, we’d muddle through, somehow. After all, we had taken his older brother, Nathaniel, to college four years ago and survived. But the tiny detail we had conveniently forgotten was that Simon was home that entire time. Our lives still revolved neatly around midterms and finals and track practice, as safe and sound as when we were kids ourselves.

Then suddenly--or so it seemed--we were growing up. Or at least Simon was…

Excerpted from I Wanna Be Sedated: 30 Writers on Parenting Teenagers
Copyright 2002 by The New York Times