Just got back from a weekend by the lake in Michigan. 2 of my sisters’ families rented a house for the week, and my other sister and I went up for the weekend. A reasonably good time was had by all. But the most significant resulting land-change was a clear realization that it was definitely time for my eldest to leave the family nest.
She’s 20, and in a week I’ll drive her for her junior year at college. She rented an apartment for the first time, and is obviously very eager to set up housekeeping. This weekend just effectively placed a punctuation mark, making clear that the time has come for her to stop being our kids, and to take huge steps to becoming her own person.
Next summer she intends to stay at school. When she comes home from now on, she will be visiting our home, instead of returning to her home. I think we prepared her pretty well, which is not to say she won’t make plenty of mistakes. But I think they’ll mostly be manageable, and I trust she’ll learn from them - at least enough to make new and creative mistakes the next time round!
Not a bad thing, just a change.
Dinsdale - What made you realize it? Was it that she was hanging more with the adults than the cousins her age? I’m sure that she’ll fledge just fine and make her way in the world. But she’d still appreciate $50 slipped her way now and then.
StG
Nah - as usual when my family does anything, there was a dispute over something! 
And when it happened it struck her mom and me that she was old enough that the dynamic of these family disputes - and activities such as vacations - had changed.
She is entitled to her opinions and ways of doing things. My wife and I tend to be pretty opinionated and run a pretty tight ship with our kids. And while that might work with kids/teens, it is no way to have a healthy relationship with an adult. As the kids get older, we give them more and more freedom and responsibility. But it just kinda clicked this weekend that it was finally time to make more of a clear adjustment in our relationships. For example, we mutually understood that she is probably beyond the age that we should plan on her coming with on family vacations. Heck - maybe that time passed a few years back and we were just slow to notice. I guess a lot of things have come together right now - most significantly her getting her own apartment, probably not coming home for future summers. She’s been seeing a decent guy for some time now - a college grad. Just putting everything together, it is time for her to fuly immerse herself in the adult end of the pool.
It is one thing to worry about your kids’ decisions and actions when they are living in your house, and you are going to be intimately affected by the results of their choices. But when they are an independent adult, well, they can decide how they want to style every aspect of their lives, no matter how big or small. And as they are making all of those decisions, overlaying their practices with our established home routines seems destined to lead to friction.
And as much as she wants to be independent, I think there is also a big part of her that loves the comfort of her homelife. For good or bad, we have made things pretty comfortable and easy for our kids. There is a reason birds and other animals forcibly eject their young from the nest at a certain age!