Motherhood Transitions: Saying Goodbye to the High School Years

Motherhood is a constant cycle of transitions—but some hit deeper than others.

When your last child graduates high school, it’s more than a milestone for them. It’s the closing of an entire chapter for you.

I didn’t expect how emotional this particular motherhood transition would feel—the shift from being “a mom with kids in school” to something entirely new.

My Own “Motherhood Graduation”

I’m pretty sure that the only “constant” on parenting is that is keeps changing. Motherhood sure doesn’t stay stagnant. There will always be motherhood transitions. Just when you figure out a dynamic or worry with one child, it morphs into a new puzzle to figure out.

We put a lot of pomp and circumstance around a child graduating and stepping off into the unknown. So many variable paths await.

But what about the mother? The mother who is mothering her very last child? She is stepping off into the great unknown as well.

And as I think about Lucy’s graduation, I think about my other kids and their high school graduations. All five of them, and all the work of letting go we’ve done over the years. I think about all the things we’ve done to prepare for this transition too.

So it’s such an interesting motherhood transition when a mother is staring down the road ahead leaving high school behind.

What It Feels Like When Your Last Child Graduates

This is what I wrote about my feelings on Instagram:

Today was the last day of Lucy’s high school career.

This means, because she is my baby, it’s my last day of high school, too.

For 23 years I have sent children off each morning armed with backpacks and pencils. Lunch boxes and “please be kind”s.

Bikes leaving our driveway with packs of neighborhood kids, my “I love yous” hovering over my children…hoping that love sticks to their skin through the hard parts.

They have come home with sweaty red faces. “Mom!” they yell when they walk in the door.

Their sleepy eyelashes have rested on their full childhood cheeks as I’ve worked to infuse morning scriptures into their hearts.

Fervent prayers sent up for tests taken. For friends to be found. For lessons to be learned.

Late-night projects strewn across the kitchen.

There were the dances. The asking, the answering. The hard-earned jobs for high-schoolers. The post-junior-year summer international internships, my heart holding both worries and joys.

There were the late nights waiting for them to get home. The nights when they didn’t want to tal. And the nights when they did, sitting on the end of my bed, their delight filling up my whole bedroom.

The fender-benders. The hand-wringing, my ears filling with tears trying to sort out the worries at night.

I have sat whooping and hollering on the sidelines of their sports, sometimes too nervous to even watch (the state tournaments).

The college applications. The sheer joy of acceptance. The black pit in my stomach for the rejections. The learning through it all.

“Life is long,” my wise mother says.

But apparently this part, the part where my children are school-goers, is not.

It is evaporating before my eyes as my Lucy triumphantly finished her last final.

This girl who has had to work so differently with her dwindling vision and special needs.

I have watched her grit and perseverance pay off in so many ways. And as I watch her glow, finishing a job well done, I am grateful.

Grateful she’s the one to wrap up my job as a mother-of-school-goers with such flourish. I look at her in wonder as she reminds me of all her siblings before. Each with their own strengths and weaknesses, emerging a step more complete.

Grateful for all they have all taught me on this part of the journey of being “mom.”

Oh this business of letting go doesn’t end at graduation—it keeps going. This next phase of letting go with Lucy will be no cakewalk.

But since I am praying for angels for her, perhaps I’ll pray for them to help me along my way as well.

A Podcast about Motherhood in Transition

My sisters and I recorded our last podcast of this season all about Motherhood Transitions. How we have maneuvered them and how our parents did too.

You’ll see we have learned a few things along the way, and are still learning with all our might. Because yes, that constant in mothering is that it just keeps changing!!

And we have to let our kids go and find a new balance for ourselves and for them over and over again.

All My Kids’ Graduations

• Max’s graduation (and mine and Dave’s too)
• Elle’s graduation
• Grace’s graduation (because she was in student council, she spoke at graduation which was fun)
• Claire’s graduation
• Lucy’s graduation