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Every month, Martin’s parents embarked on a journey to visit grandma, returning home on the same train the following evening.

One day the young son said to his parents,

“I’m already grown up. This time can I please go to my grandma’s alone?”

After a brief discussion, his parents accepted. Together the three of them stood on the platform, waiting for him to board the train alone.

Then mom and dad waved goodbye to their son all the while giving him some last minute tips as he boarded the steps. An exasperated Martin repeated them saying, “I know, I know. I’ve been told these things more than a thousand times.”

Then just as the train was about to leave, Martin’s father handed him something. “Son,” he confided, “if you feel bad or insecure, this if for you.” And with that he put something in Martin’s pocket.

As the train left the station, Martin realized he was all alone. Completely alone! He sat there by himself for the first time. What to do, he wondered? So, he started his solo journey by admiring the landscape whipping past his window.

Just then a group of loud, rowdy people pushed themselves into the train car. Yelling and laughing they made an unpleasant—even scary—commotion as they stomped up and down the aisle of the train.

About that time, the conductor came by, stopped at Martin’s seat and noticed he was all alone. “How are you doing there, son? Are you okay all by yourself?” Next the sympathetic person across the aisle looked at him with eyes of sadness.

Martin began to feel uneasy. Every minute that passed made him feel it more intensely. Now he was truly afraid. He felt cornered and really on his own. His head fell to his chest and soon tears began running down his cheeks.

That’s when he remembered that his father had put something in his pocket. Trembling, he began to search for it. From deep in his pocket, he pulled something out. It was a piece of paper.

Through his tears he read, “Son, I’m in the last train car!”

In sharing this lesson, I am not implying that when our child goes off to college we should rent a dorm room for ourselves down the hallway. What is does say is that it is up to us parents to grow a child who is ready to leave home … and wants to do so. In my way of thinking, if your child does not want to leave, then your parenting has not been successful.

That is because this is the way that life moves on. We must let our children go and they in turn must let us go. We release them to fly to wonderful new and fascinating things; to make a life that is their own where they will astonish themselves with all they can achieve.

This, moreover, never means that we will ever stop watching and listening to and for them from the last train car.