Parents’ weekend at my son’s university convinced me of one thing: I am definitely not as old as those other parents.

They look old enough to be my parents. They look so uncool, so parental.

At one point, however, I saw my son looking at me looking at him, and it hit me like a brick: through my son’s eyes, I definitely looked as old as those other parents. This was made even harder because my son goes to my alma mater, and I kept thinking it was me and my friends in the library, me and my friends in the cafeteria, me and my friends in the dorm – but actually it’s me and my friends who will be at our 30th reunion this June.

That’s the truth, and hey, it hurts a bit.

When we send our kids off to college we send ourselves off, too, in a sense. Just as the bar mitzvah represents a rite of passage for the whole family – changing the family dynamic and reminding us that we don’t have a “baby” anymore – so, too, does sending the first child off to university hold up a mirror of aging to both us and our kid.

They have to learn that they, too, are growing older. They must budget their time and their money, develop their own serious relationships – though we may not always be thrilled with the people they choose – and determine their own Jewish life, observances and attitudes. This may be exciting for them, but boy is it scary for us.

Watching my son at university, I felt exactly the same way I felt on his first day of junior kindergarten: utterly proud and utterly lost. How do I relate to this kid who is no longer a baby? How do I relate to this boy who is now a man?

The two most important things I think I’ve given my son are roots and wings.

When it comes to roots, parents of young children should prepare now so that they feel confident that their child is firmly rooted in their family and in Judaism when she/he goes off in the future.

And when it comes to wings, we should recall the story of a man who once found the cocoon of a butterfly with a small opening. He watched the butterfly as it struggled to force its body through that little hole, but it seemed to stop making any progress. He decided to help it. He took a pair of scissors and snipped off the remaining cocoon. The butterfly emerged with a swollen body and small, shrivelled wings. It was never able to fly.

In his kindness, the man did not understand that the struggle required for the butterfly to get through the tiny opening was God’s way of forcing fluid from its body into its wings so that it would be ready for flight. It couldn’t be helped to do this.

Likewise, parents must be careful not to help so much that their kids cannot endure a struggle. The late Rabbi Milton Steinberg called this “holding tight with open arms.”

All during parents’ weekend, I felt the blending of love and loss that defines parenthood. And so did all those other old, uncool parents just like me.