This autumn I'm weaning myself off a habit, going cold turkey. Withdrawal symptoms are causing me considerable pain. I'm probably not succeeding.
I'm a recovering high-school parent. For the past nine years, I've cheered on my three children in their athletic pursuits, applauded their musical and dramatic performances and celebrated their scholastic achievements. I've been the driver and minor factotum for all of their activities at our neighbourhood high school.
But in June, my youngest son graduated from Grade 12. With no teams, choirs or bands to applaud, or any of a dozen other school events to attend, I'm a parent without a school. I'm not sure I can cope. I'm a lost man.
Since 2000, a big part of my life during school has been to encourage, schedule, deliver pep talks, fundraise and mix with teachers and other parents in support of my teenaged students.
Now my parental involvement in the extracurricular lives of a daughter and two sons is finished. This is my first autumn in recent memory that I won't be a fixture in the school's gymnasium or auditorium. It hasn't quite sunk in yet. Isn't there a game or concert I should be going to?
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My wife doesn't drive and has always worked evenings. There was never a soccer mom in our house, always a soccer dad. As the designated activities facilitator, I'm the softy who's all torn up about finding that my services are no longer required.
Besides innumerable local events, I travelled to see my offspring perform throughout Saskatchewan. This time last year, I drove a van full of boys for 12 hours to spend a long weekend with them at their provincial volleyball championships.
I was also out there on canoe trips, for football games, badminton tournaments, variety nights, school dances, band camp, jazz concerts, swimming training, school tours, parent-teacher meetings, Remembrance Day services and Christmas concerts.
I taxied my offspring to class in the morning, picked them up at night and helped with homework. Along the way I got to know, on a first-name basis, many of the other students, secretaries, teachers and parents of a community-minded school. And I was there with bells on for three proud graduation ceremonies.
No longer needed for any of this, I feel like I just got laid off. Driving past, I still gaze at the building with unabashed pride and fondness.
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My volunteerism was far from indispensable to the smooth running of the institution. I was never a politically active parent-council type, but simply a low-key motivator, a loyal attendee, a loudly clapping concertgoer, boisterous fan and unabashed school booster.
Nor do I expect a medal for time served in the line of duty. I enjoyed it. Being a high-school parent was an escape valve for me. Watching a raucous basketball game or a lively musical was a welcome diversion after a 9-to-5 day in my middle-aged work world.
Was I there only for my own kids, basking in their glory, living vicariously through their achievements instead of my own? No. I embraced the experience even when they sat on the team bench or had only a short musical offering in a three-hour concert. I drank in the spirit of the school, enjoyed the camaraderie among parents and celebrated our community.
I wasn't socially engaged or involved during my own adolescence. I was one of the smallest boys in an overcrowded high school of nearly 1,800 students. I was overjoyed to leave after Grade 11 to live overseas.
Maybe I overcompensated. But I found myself in a neighbourhood with a school that offered terrific opportunities. With extra encouragement, co-ordination and effort from me, my kids could have experiences I never dreamed of for myself.
Students who get involved in school activities do better academically and socially, so there must be some payoff for it all. My two oldest children are already punching above their weight in their postsecondary academic and work endeavours. I expect my Grad of 2009 will do the same.
Good for them. But what am I going to do with myself this fall and winter? Is there life after being a high-school parent? If so, what is it? I should be happy with all the free time I have. I could travel, write a book, get a real social life. But I was hooked. Maybe I'll sneak back some night, just for old time's sake, and root for the school's teams or clap for other people's kids at their concerts.
In June, after graduation ceremonies, I helped chaperone our all-night, chemical-free, Grade 12 after-grad party. About 200 students enjoyed dancing to their classmates' bands before a midnight buffet, followed by three hours under the spell of a master hypnotist. Then they all had breakfast. In the grey light of dawn, we bussed back to the school and dispersed. It was all over.
Sitting together in the family van, I don't know who was more emotional, my son or me. He was at the school only four years. I'd been going there for more than double that time.
Guess which one of us got all misty-eyed about it?
Byron Jenkins lives in Saskatoon.
Illustration by Neal Cresswell.