There are moments in our lives as parents, ones we anticipate but never fully appreciate, when we realize that our only real purpose in life is to empower our children to become the humans they are meant to be. These moments are hard, joyful, scary, uplifting, and cut to the core of our existence as parents. Registration Day is one of those moments for new Proctor parents.
From that first sleepless night in the hospital wondering how we could ever have been trusted to steward the little human that whimpers in our arms, our children teach us how to simultaneously hold onto them with all that we have, and gradually let them blossom into their own being. Through each milestone - their first steps, learning to ride a two wheeler, losing their first tooth, going off to their first day of school, their first soccer game or performance on stage - we watch as our children step forward with the confidence we hoped they would have, but that we haven’t quite granted them ourselves.
We gradually learn to trust that the never-ending, ceaseless love we have poured into our children has prepared them for what’s next. We trust that our role as parents will be supplemented by, not replaced by, other adults in their lives at Proctor, working together to solidify the foundation on which they are building their lives. This act of letting go is harder for some of us, than it is for others, but for all of us it is an act of bravery.
Each year, we share a similar message with our new parents on Registration Day. It is one of encouraging each other to hold these contradictory emotions side by side - trust and fear, joy and sadness, excitement and anxiety - as we think about launching our children into their Proctor journey. There is an indescribable, bittersweet feeling as we watch them walk away, with their Wilderness Orientation packs on their backs, into the very experience we have hoped they might have.
It is in these moments when we remind each other that when we are brave enough to let our children go, they become brave enough to become themselves. Our children are capable of so much more than we think they are. They are ready, even when we realize we might not be. Our job, right now, is to let them walk with their own confidence into that which awaits them while we stand, hand in hand with each other as parents, beaming with pride in who our children have become and anxiously waiting to see how the adults and Proctor community will shape them.
Read More About Being a Proctor Parent
- Admissions
- Wilderness Orientation