The Long Goodbye: Notes from a Former Stay-at-Home Dad
This spring, our youngest son finishes high school. The rented prom tux is back in the store. The final school concert has come and gone. Baseball’s Senior Day is over. At the time I write this, he’ll walk across the graduation stage in a couple of weeks and into his next chapter. And with that, we’ll close one of the most defining and meaningful chapters of our own.
For more than twenty years, our days have revolved around raising our three boys. We shaped our time around their lives. School drop-offs, field trips, concerts, practices, and science projects. Early mornings, long drives, packed calendars. We were the constant in their days. We showed up, together, and built a life full of motion, noise, and love.
Like so many other parents we handled what needed handling. Morning lunches. Forgotten laptops. Chess tournaments in distant cafeterias. Permission slips signed on the car. Vocabulary quizzes over dinner. We made room for Scouts, LEGO robotics, instruments, soccer, baseball, basketball, football. One even gave fencing a shot. Some weekends blurred, others burned into memory.
We watched the boys grow into themselves. Sometimes in bursts, sometimes slowly. Through awkward phases, heartbreaks, midnight essays, unexpected passions. We adjusted as they changed. We gave them room, even when we didn’t feel ready. And now, with our youngest preparing to leave, the tempo has shifted. The calendar opens up. The house sounds different. Quiet is the difference.
Parenting doesn’t end, but the daily part, the predictable chaos, the shared logistics, the ambient noise of family life begins to fade. And that brings its own kind of ache.
Still, we feel proud. We feel grateful. We showed up, side by side, for the better part of two decades. We were there for the things that mattered, and the million things that didn’t seem like they did at the time. Whatever comes next will rest on that foundation that the five of us built quietly, one ordinary and others extraordinary day at a time.