Thank God for Facebook. How else would I know my firstborn child received his first college acceptance letter? (Whining about this publicly is unfair, since the kid already apologized and promised to call when the next letters come.) (But it’s a perfect example for my point, so too bad.)

I have become irrelevant. I knew, all along, that ultimately my success as a parent would be measured by how useless I eventually became. Now that the moment is here, it is hard to feel like it is a success. It’s not that Syd doesn’t love and appreciate me; he does. He just doesn’t really need me.

And here I am with all these helpful skills! I know how to soften the edges of things for teachers. I know how to rush forgotten lunches to school. I know how to listen patiently through the four-part harmony version of any particular disaster, real or imagined. I can make play-dough, read stories in the dark, kiss boo-boos, sing about Old MacDonald’s farm, which grows everything from sheep to telephone poles, mend crucial stuffed animals, do speed laundry, and converse with imaginary friends. I have passed seventh grade math three times, once by the skin of my teeth and by the power of prayer.

Admittedly, these skills have won me a fair number of friends in the under-seven set. It’s amazing what imaginary pizza can do for a person’s popularity. But it’s now all for recreational use. I have worked myself out of a job.

It’s a good thing, and yet I’m sad.