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![First time dropping kid off at college David and Sebastian standing in front of body of water](https://aarp.widen.net/content/i4i8havrcf/jpeg/Unknown-1_ME.jpg?crop=true&anchor=0,359&q=80&color=ffffffff&u=7xsf69&w=2048&h=1177)
On the day we emptied our nest, I rose early to survey the pile-up of boxes and zippered duffel bags heading to college with our son. Fortunately, one of my gifts as a parent is car packing. Give me a bicycle, a window fan, a stack of Hula Hoops and a life-size Stormtrooper action figure, and I’ll fit them into the back of your Prius.
But moving my only child, Sebastian, to college would be the packing job of all packing jobs, the mother lode of father loads. We rented a gleaming white minivan for the occasion, and I entered a kind of dad trance as I puzzled together the component parts of my son’s soon-to-be campus life. Into the vehicle went blankets, desk lamps and vinyl records, plastic tubs of sneakers and Shakespeare books. And was Sebastian really bringing the fuzzy blue elephant he’d slept with since toddlerhood? Ciao for now, Babu!
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Taking your children to college isn’t just about getting them from point A to point B, or even to points B.A., B.S. or Ph.D. As a father, I felt the responsibility to help launch Sebastian in a way that set him up for every success. All those years of “use your inside voice” and “look both ways before crossing the street” suddenly felt like a lead-up to this one epic departure on a random Monday in September.
That’s why one of the things we packed was something you can’t just buy at Target. For weeks, my wife and I had been quietly compiling a list of wisdom nuggets that we hoped would help Sebastian weather the inevitable storms ahead: first-year mistakes, stressful exams, painful breakups. In case the everyday lessons we tried to transmit over the ages somehow didn’t stick, here they were writ large, tucked under his pillow to find after we said our goodbyes: “100 Thoughts From Your Parents as You Begin College.”
Ruth wrote 50 and I wrote 50, and when I read my entries aloud to her, I got through exactly five words before melting down into a blubbering hot soup of tears. The opening line went:
“You deserve to be here. Don’t let anyone (including yourself) tell you otherwise.”
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