The Hidden Drama of a College Drop-Off

There’s a theatrical element in the life of a family. Children shouldn’t hear their parents arguing, which all couples do sometimes, so you’ve got to bottle it up. It’s show business. You smile when you’re low.

Luckily, I had work to distract me as Clara pulled away. Her four younger siblings were calling out for berries from the breakfast table. Time for self-pity is limited when the lights are up and the audience is in its seats.

They say you have a child for only 18 years. That’s not completely true. While every kid is different, I’ve always felt our work with Clara was essentially done by the time she was 14. She was herself by then. It was obvious.

Is her character the product of nature or the result of nurture? Who knows? My sense is that we could easily have screwed things up. Decisions were made. We tried to shield Clara from the world’s swirling madness. She was home-schooled until the eighth grade. Then we sent her to a small classical high school 30 miles away from our home. She spent a lot of her free time with nuns.

Clara’s education looks less radical today than it did before the pandemic, but we live in New York state. Our choices earned us plenty of funny looks over the years. American culture makes a big show of encouraging you to take risks and chart your own path. It doesn’t always mean what it says.

Now she’s learning Greek and reading Russian literature on the manicured lawns of a historic Southern university. I’m pleased it all worked out, though I don’t know how much credit my wife and I should take. First Clara learned from us. She read what we put in front of her and laughed at the things we found funny. Later this reversed itself. We learned from her. She told us about what she’d been studying, and we adopted her sense of humor.

It’s funny how that happens in a family. Eventually, I suppose, the parent-child dynamic flips entirely. In a few decades she may be rolling her eyes as she takes care of us. I’m sure I’ll do something silly and dangerous or predictably dumb in my geezerhood.

The day Clara left was bright and sunny, like her future. I’m going to miss her, but you won’t catch me crying. Not on the outside, anyway. The show must go on.

Mr. Hennessey is the Journal’s deputy editorial features editor.