Confessions of an empty-nest parent

Now that my youngest has graduated from high school and will soon be off to college, I think it's time to come clean. First, a disclaimer: My boys are GREAT kids. In high school they both earned outstanding grades and were very successful in numerous sports and activities. They generally treated other people well; if not always with outright kindness, then at least with courtesy. They never got into any trouble, and stayed away from drugs and alcohol. So. Good kids.

However.

I clearly remember when they were very young, and I - as a high school teacher - witnessed what some parents of high schoolers did. I remember shaking my head and vowing, "When my kids are in high school I will never..."

Now that my kids have both graduated, I can say that the actions of those other parents make much more sense to me now, and I am here today to eat crow. I am not going to offer any rationalization or justifications for my actions, but rest assured that before my kids were in high school I could not have imagined any reasons why these parenting decisions would have been acceptable under any circumstances. And yet...

"My list of 12 things I said I would never do when my kids were in high school, but I did anyway."

1. Ignored son being tardy. To my own class. More than one day in a row.
2. Asked track coach if that workout was really the best she could come up with.
3. Made three different dinner entrees to satisfy the different dietary preferences of four family members.
4. Allowed son to sleep until 3:30 in the afternoon during the summer.
5. Went home during my lunchtime to fetch forgotten homework, track jersey, flash drive, etc.
6. Got in the habit of allowing son and girlfriend to be home alone while wife and I went out for the evening.
7. Asked math teacher to explain how that semester grade was fair.
8. Went to bed at 1:30 a.m. with son still out...somewhere. Did not mention it to him the next day.
9. Paid for car, car insurance, and gas. For years.
10. Figured that if the teacher assigned worksheets for homework that she took directly off the internet, then she must know that the answer keys are pretty easy for kids to find.
11. Cleaned bathroom because it was easier to do it myself than nag.
12. Allowed son to quit a sport in the middle of a season.

There you go. I'm not proud.