DAUGHTER'S READY, BUT ARE HER PARENTS?

Byline: Kevin O'Leary  Local View

NONE of us cried as we said goodbye to Allison. I saved my tears and feelings of anguish for the next day. Standing on the grass by her red- brick dorm on the Cal Poly San Luis Obispo campus, my wife, my younger daughter and I hugged and kissed her. As we waved one last time, we were finishing that ritual of middle-class American life when a daughter or son packs up and moves away to college.

Life's transitions can be wrenching. Even those that are life-affirming and have been on the horizon for years. Suddenly, move-in day arrives and that 18-year-old full of energy, smiles and cutting remarks is five hours away, bonding with other nest-leavers on another step toward adulthood. The teenager is full of excitement and anxiety about a new life about to begin; the parent is mournful of the end of childhood.

Across the nation, millions of families are sending off their oldest child to the first year of college. And for every one of these parents, emotions run strong. For us, Allison has been a dream - talented, mature for her age, more responsible than many adults, a strong student. She was born with inner steel. A good thing, too, because the birthing experience at Yale New Haven Hospital nearly killed her. Some parents must cope with drugs or alcohol or rebellion in the teen years; we teetered on disaster on day one.

Because of dirty hands and a mix-up on due dates, the attempt to induce labor and bring Allison forth into the world meant she emerged from a C-section a deathly pale blue. As the nurses whisked her away to neonatal intensive care, my heart stopped. I knew something was terribly wrong. It had a name: beta strep pneumonia. Many of the infected infants die, many others emerge with brain damage. Pneumonia in the womb is particularly nasty because when the baby attempts to take its first breath its lungs are filled with water. Thanks to some incredible doctors and nurses, Allison survived without ill effects.

Now the miracle child has gone to college.

Like other families, we've been looking forward to this day. Allison and her peers have spent a large part of the past four years working toward this goal. Today, high school is driven and focused, at least at school districts where a large number of high school seniors are bound for four-year colleges, including some of the most competitive in the nation.

I've been around universities a good part of my adult life - as a graduate student, a professor and a research fellow. But I never personally experienced the ``drop-off.'' As an undergrad at UCLA, I was a commuter student the first three years and as a graduate student at Yale in the '80s, my wife and I used to joke about the end of summer being signaled by all the station wagons suddenly appearing, spilling over with students and their belongings. Last weekend, I was one of those lost parents on campus.

Last Saturday, the parking lot at Cal Poly was packed with SUVs and minivans. Hand-trolleys veered this way and that as families huffed and puffed with boxes. Soon, the male wings of the dorm sported electric guitars and large television sets, while the female corridors featured crisp comforters with matching pillows and fashion statements in the closets. On nearly every desk sat a desktop or laptop.

And in every room, freshmen were getting to know their roommates. In this new electronic age, Allison had already met her roommate online and spoken with her on the phone. She and her parents were lovely and this might be a situation where the roommates actually become good friends.

From the first day of kindergarten, to riding a bike, to winning a spot on student council, we all root our children on. Even when these soon-to-be adults are receding in the rear-view mirror.