March 2006

Parent to parent: Study abroad brings changes

By Mom Marion

Sometimes, mothers need acting classes. When I took my 20-year-old son Daniel to the airport before he left in August for his semester abroad, I wanted to project total calm confidence in his ability to negotiate this new experience. He was nervous -- I could see it in his knitted brow -- and I wanted him to know that he would be just fine.

The question was: would I be just fine?

I was nervous, too.

So I did silly things. I tried to make a friend for him (another young traveler to Denmark I met on the lunch line), and I gave him a pep talk that emphasized the independence and skills he had acquired already, although I was really thinking, "Why don't you put your passport in a safer pocket?"

(I said that, too.)

Then, remembering back to my own junior year abroad, I switched gears and tried to explain -- without sounding trite -- that your mind opens when you live abroad, that your sense of other people and countries changes, that your self-confidence grows as you negotiate things on your own. I wanted him to catch the spirit of adventure I remembered so well.

He looked at his watch and said, "I better get going."

I watched him shuffle off, bent under his backpack. We both had been through the ringer.

Long-distance 'communication'

In Denmark, his host mother urged Daniel to call us when he first arrived. After that, we heard nothing. Having pitched in for a cell phone, I expected phone calls. Since he took his laptop, I expected e-mail. I wrote to him eagerly, wanting to hear details of his experience, hoping to relive the excitement of my European discoveries by hearing about his.

After two (long) weeks, one group e-mail arrived.

"I haven't done too much that is noteworthy yet besides being in Denmark," he wrote. "I haven't met many Danes yet. My host family is really nice and quite laid back."

What did that mean? What does a young traveler feel free to do when his family is "laid back"?

Two weeks later, a second e-mail sounded upbeat.

"I'm doing very well here. I'm getting out and in this past week I've actually met a few Danes by myself (I'm hanging out with one of them tonight)."

What do young Danes do when they hang out?

Suddenly, I remembered all the things I left out of the letters I wrote to my parents.

More e-mail

His enthusiasm continued to grow. A November e-mail to friends and family began this way: "Study abroad is definitely something worth doing. Being a student in a foreign country affords you so many opportunities you just do not have at home (though, those opportunities differ based on where you go)."

His last message before flying home mentions that his bank account is hurting but, "Overall, study abroad has been awesome for me. A life-changing experience."

I believe those are the same words I used years ago.

Home again

Today, my son is a young man who just got back from Denmark. He was there when those Muslim-offending cartoons appeared in the newspaper. He knows something about Danish values and how Danes respond to current events. He follows the news.

He continues to advocate travel abroad. "Many students are afraid it won't be in line with their major," he told me. "Or they're afraid it will set back their career. But I say, 'You can afford this.' It was worth it in my case, even though it did nothing for my career as a computer scientist. Of course, once you get there, you have to go out and meet people."

He has changed in ways only a parent can observe. He calls more often and he's more comfortable on the phone, more willing to share. I think his emerging adulthood feels real to him after he learned to make his own life in another country. He's no longer afraid that his parents will swoop in and turn him back into a child.

I'm proud. I'm happy.

I join him in recommending study abroad.

Newspaper columnist Marion Franck is the mother of a second-year graduate student and a college junior. A former lecturer at UC Davis, she is co-author, with UC Davis Associate Chancellor Sally Springer, of Admission Matters: What Students and Parents Need to Know About Getting Into College.

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