Quotation by Louise J. Kaplan

For parents the grown-up child's leave-taking from the family nest is a time for reexamining their own lives. . . . They reminisce about the birth of this marvelous child, her first smile, her first words, her first steps. . . . They look back . . . to their mothers and fathers as they seemed then—so strong, so marvelous—to the schoolyard games, to the springtime of youth when the energies of growth propelled them into the future and everything still seemed possible.