At the end of this holiday weekend, I realize this is the second Fourth of July I have spent with my oldest son in a different country. While we celebrated Independence Day in northern Michigan with friends and family this year, Max was in Greece.  Last year he was in London.  As you may know, Max loves to travel and see the world.  He is traveling again this year with People to People, a student travel organization. http://peopletopeople.com/  Last year, I was beside myself the entire time he was gone.  I couldn’t sleep, cried on the drop of a dime and basically waited out the seventeen days until his return, miserable most of the time.

This summer Max is a year older and I am a year wiser (older, too, but why admit it).  We were both much more relaxed about packing and preparing him; starting the week before his departure instead of a month ahead like last year.  I was generally calmer and so was he.  I don’t want to say having my son travel to strange countries without me is becoming routine, but I have to admit, I’m getting used to it.

I know now that technology keeps us together, even when we are on different continents. We get an international plan for his I Phone for the month he is gone. After 700.00 in data use overages last summer (darned Facebook), we got the right plan this summer. He can text, he can call, he can post to Instagram, Facebook and his blog.  These things make me feel like I can reach out and touch him, even if it is a virtual touch.  It may help that I teach online.  I am used to communicating virtually and find it very effective.  Technology allows me to stay in touch with my son, no matter where he is.  I know if he needs something, he can get to me, one way or another.  I find this reassuring.  For my fourteen year old son, it is just a way of life.  Max, like many kids his age, has grown up on what we refer to in my home as blended communication.  Let me be clear, I prefer face to face communication and real, up close and personal dialogue with my children.  However, sometimes that isn’t possible.  The older kids get, the more they are away from you, doing what they are supposed to do: growing up.  They roll in from sports practices while you are putting their younger siblings to bed.  By the time you get back downstairs, they are scarfing down their second dinner, polishing off half a gallon of chocolate milk and finishing up their homework.  It can be difficult to get information, much less conversation, out of them.  However, I find that a well timed text message can sometimes do just that.  If I know time will be tight, I might text while he is riding home in the carpool and ask how practice was.  Sometimes I get lucky and get, “Good. You won’t believe what so and so said to so and so and then they blah, blah, blah”.  It is the blah, blah, blah that I want to hear and so often can’t pry out of my tired, cranky teenaged son. I want to know who said what to whom, how the coach handled the drama and how my child reacted to it.  The pseudo anonymity that a text or email can provide may be a negative lure in some instances, but it sure works for getting information out of my son.  It works when he is at home and it works when he is in Europe, too.  Sometimes I can communicate more effectively thanks to technology.

I am learning as my kids get older, it doesn’t matter which continent your child is on, or whether you spend holidays together.  When I think beyond having one less red, white and blue body with me, I realize that it doesn’t matter where my son is. What matters is that I am here for him, whether in person or via email, text message or Skype.  What matters even more (to me) is that if I feel compelled to reach him, I can!