A few weeks ago, dear readers, my emotional fortitude was challenged. Like some sort of character in a Greek tragedy (clever, handsome, muscular, hairy), I was called upon to face some of my very darkest fears. I was tested by world-shaking forces beyond my comprehension.

You see, a few weeks ago, my daughter started school.

Fear not. I’m happy to report that I’m still able to function – performing daily tasks and interactions at near-normal levels. In short, I’m not crippled by mental distress, worrying about the awful things that could be happening to my kid as she meanders her way though the harsh reality we call “kindergarten.”

Millions of kids start school every year, and millions of parents need to deal with the emotional tilt-a-whirl of seeing their kid magically leap forward in age and then disappear for a good chunk of the day. It’s bizarre. Slap a giant backpack on a kid, put a No. 2 pencil in their tiny hand, and POW. In the blink of a parent’s sleep-deprived eye, they seem to age a good five years.

And then they just up and leave you. Parents using daycare are bit more used to this, but my family doesn’t, so my wife went from pretty much seeing every single thing our daughter did all day (whether my wife wanted to or not) to seeing absolutely nothing for half our kid’s day. It’s like someone completely rearranged our furniture. Into a different house. It’s hard to explain if you don’t have kids (or a chihuahua you’re really attached to), but try to imagine suddenly being without something essential to your daily life. Like your left leg. Or beer. It’s kinda like that. 

Except there’s a lot more to it.

Sure, the whole “my baby’s so grown up” stuff is hard to deal with. But I think it’s even harder to watch your kid venture out into the world (even just a little bit), because all that parenting you’ve been doing is finally put to the test. Like most parents, my wife and I spend plenty of time worrying about whether or not we’ve totally screwed up our kid. And once they’re in a brand new setting, outside their normal comfort zones, you finally get a good glimpse at how well they jive with the larger world. 

   What if they have a total breakdown and start screaming? What if they have a total breakdown and start crying? What if they have a total breakdown and start pelting their classmates with bottles of tempera paint? What if they just do ... nothing?

I imagine this is what the United Sates felt like when they launched their first satellite into space – all the time and resources spent working on the thing, all the planning and equations, all the blood, sweat, and tears. Finally, you just have to launch the thing into orbit and hope it doesn’t explode into a catastrophic fireball ... or, you know, hope it doesn’t pick its nose and eat glue stick in front of the teacher.

Of course, I’m not sending my kid to school because some Russian family a few blocks over already sent their own daughter (Sputnikka) to school, sending me into a hysterical panic, scrambling to keep up. So that takes a lot of pressure off.

So far, things seem to be going pretty well with our little satellite. She’s yet to erupt into any kind of emotional fireball, so that’s good. I think most parents have visions of their children rushing into their arms after school to gush about all the amazing things they’ve seen and done. Maybe that happens for some people, but it looks like (surprise!) the reality of it all is slightly different. Some kids talk about school, while some kids don’t. Some kids take a while to process what’s going on, while some kids tell their parents how they spent all day riding a giant caterpillar around the playground. Things are a little different every single day.

And that’s when you’re reminded that your parenting is far from over.