…sentiments that hit so hard when you have a child graduating.
Living this weird existence between monumentally proud and feeling my heart break a little bit more with each passing day is a feeling I cannot explain using words. It’s meant to be experienced, though I wish I could tell you.
‘The days are long but the years are short,’ ‘time flies,’ ‘you’re going to miss this,’ ‘you’re not raising kids, you’re raising adults,’
If I had a dollar for every time I heard those sentiments when our children were young, well, I’d have a trillion dollars. It’s easy to smile and nod when you’re walking through Publix with a 6-year-old, a 3-year-old, and newborn twins in a double stroller by yourself trying to grocery shop, keep four kids in your line of sight, prevent kidnapping, and make sure no one is run over in the parking lot and some well-meaning stranger stops you to share the same sentiment you’ve heard a thousand times today (along with, “are they twins? Are they identical? FOUR KIDS? YOU DO KNOW HOW THAT HAPPENS RIGHT?”).
You ignore it. Maybe you roll your eyes when you turn to walk away. Perhaps you think to yourself, “Oh my goodness, no, I cannot imagine ever missing navigating four kids through the store like this.” I get it. I was there. Trust me.
But now I’m here, and guess what?
The days are long, but the years are so much shorter.
Time FLIES.
You are definitely going to miss it.
You really aren’t raising kids because you really are raising adults.
As our firstborn – our beautiful daughter – prepares to graduate from high school with her AA in two short months, every day of my life is a roller coaster of hardcore emotions. Pride, excitement, sadness, fear, worry, heartbreak, exuberance, overwhelming happiness. You name it, I’ve felt it before 8 am any given day.
That’s why today’s Friday Four is all about it.
The years are so short
When our babies were babies, the days felt endless. Until 2015, my husband worked an hour from home. He was gone by 6:30 am and home by 6:30 pm, and I was home with the kids and on my own all the time. It was…a lot. Thankfully, it was only 3 years with one baby, 3 years with two babies, and one year with 4 babies, so it wasn’t that bad. The days, however, were endless.
When the twins were one, and my husband left his job and began working from home, the days felt even longer. Keeping four kids quiet while he was tucked away in our home office, providing for our very large family? Brutal, honestly. The days were the longest, but the years still passed quickly.
Now, though? Now that the kids are 17, 15, 12, and 12? Now the days pass so quickly that I cannot blink for fear of missing the entire day. A year feels more like a month in the grand scheme of things, and it’s unbelievable to me how fast time passes. I wish I’d known it…really known it back then.
Time flies
I don’t know how to explain it so that it makes sense, but let me try. Our kids went back to school on August 11, 2025, for their sixth, sixth, ninth, and senior years (well, Addy didn’t go back because she finished all her high school classes her junior year so she’s full-time college this year, but you know what I mean). August 11 felt like yesterday.
Time has flown so quickly this year that there was a point last week that my son said something about his math class, and I responded with, “Well, once you guys get into a routine as a class, that’ll change,” and that’s when I realized they do have a routine because the year ends in just over two months. They just went back to school. We were just in the mountains with our best friends following Christmas, but it’s been three months. It was just Christmas morning, but it’s mid-March.
I’m almost ready to ask my husband to pull out the fall décor because it’s almost spring break, which means the end of the school year is in 10 minutes, which means summer is over in 15 minutes, which means it’s almost time to take out my fall décor, and college football is almost back!
That’s how fast time flies.
I do miss it
How can I explain what it’s like to miss something I still have? I don’t even know, so here goes nothing. Our daughter turns 18 in July. She still lives at home. She doesn’t even graduate from high school for another 10 weeks. She doesn’t leave for college until the summer.
But she’s leaving.
She’s moving out. She’s moving on. She’s moving into her adult life and her own life, and she’s no longer a child.
For four years, we sat in the stands every Friday night from August to November watching her cheer on the sidelines. Every Friday night for four months, we sweat profusely, and strangers and their own sweat-covered bodies were pushed up against ours because the stands were packed. For four years, we drove an hour to this away game and two hours to that away game, and we weren’t home until 10-10:30 pm after a long, exhausting week of running the kids back and forth to school and practices.
For four years, I sat in the stands for four months at a time thinking that while I’ll miss watching my daughter cheer, I wouldn’t actually miss Friday nights in the stands.
Now that her senior cheer season is over – her very last season in uniform – I would give anything, anything to go back and redo those four years’ worth of Friday nights. Anything.
When she turned 16, and we surprised her with her car, I didn’t think I’d miss driving her to and from practices and school. Now? Now I can’t remember the last time she was in the car with me. I’d give anything to drive her around again.
I miss it all so much already, and I know it’s only going to get worse. I know that soon, I won’t be the only one missing her like this. Soon, she’ll move out and I’ll have a sad husband and three sad kids and a sad dog, and my heart hurts thinking about the day that we have to help her move out and that we have to say goodbye to her and leave her somewhere without us.
My heart aches thinking about watching the kids say goodbye to their big sister, knowing that she won’t be coming home every night anymore and that time with her is going to be even more precious than it is now.
God, I’ve made myself sob.
We were never raising kids because we really were raising adults
I never really understood this one. “You’re not really raising kids, you’re raising adults,” people would say to me when the children were little, and I never truly understood that until now.
Until now, because now I ask myself, “Did we do a good job?” “Is she ready for the real world?” Because we were raising her for this moment. The moment she steps outside of the comfort zone that is her home with two parents who would do anything and everything for her to keep her safe, happy, and healthy. The moment she becomes fully responsible for herself, her life, her time, and her responsibilities. The moment she becomes an adult.
Is she ready? Does she know what to do? Does she know how to handle herself and care for herself? Does she know how to approach uncomfortable situations? Does she know how to have mature conversations and make difficult choices? I hope so. I think so. Time will tell.
I am confident that we’ve raised her to be kind, thoughtful, responsible, mature, and wise. I am confident we’ve raised her to stand up for herself, to make the right decision and never the popular decision, to do hard things and move herself out of her comfort zone for the sake of her own success and future. I am confident she is grace-filled and lovely. I am confident she is ambitious and smart, and she will do amazing things.
I cannot go back and redo her childhood, but I can share what I’ve learned along the way. If you find yourself in the midst of the chaotic moments (which never get easier or less chaotic, only a different type of chaotic), please remember my words. Perhaps it feels overwhelming right now, but this moment is going to be over and on to the next so quickly. I know it’s difficult not to wish it away. Those “I can’t wait until they’re old enough to feed/bathe/entertain themselves” moments are abundant for a few years, and it’s hard not to be so excited for the next phase. But those phases end as quickly as they begin, and you don’t get them back.
Tiffany Raiford 