My youngest baby bird wants desperately to be an adult, to stay out of the nest and be soaring on his own.  There is just one slight problem.

He is doing the equivalent of a baby eagle perched on a rocky out-cropping besides the cliff-side nest and saying, “I’m on my own now!  I’m never living in the nest again!  The eaglet hops around his rock eating small rodents.  “I’m an adult; I’m providing for myself!” the eaglet thinks.  Time goes on and the eaglet never flies more than short distances, catching only small rodents.  Without realizing it, the eaglet eats only enough to barely survive but not to grow.

The eaglet must REALLY fly.  It must fly high and long and far to find enough food to survive.  In flying long distances, the eaglet develops the strong muscular structure that is necessary for survival in the wild.

So what is a momma eagle to do when eaglets are a bit slow to leave?  I researched a bit and found that momma eagles will not actually push the eaglet from the nest.  What happens is that the eaglets hang around nearby the nest, begging for food in between their own short excursions.  Eventually, the eaglets will take off for good when confident enough.

I wonder if eagle mommas ever let their eaglets know it’s time to go and completely forage on their own.  I wonder if there have been reluctant eaglets who hung around the nest longer than they should have.  Apparently, they hang around the nest for 1 or 2 months after learning to fly, constantly begging for food before taking off on their own.  What if the 2 months turned into 4 or 6 months?  Perhaps the momma eagle might get to the point of ending the food provision.

I’m right there with my youngest.  He lives so close to the edge of poverty that it has only been a matter of time before something unexpected pushed his world upside down.

My son finished his semester at community college.  All but one class went well which is great.  Unfortunately, that one class was a D.  We put our foot down with him at the beginning of the semester and let him know that from now on, any class grade less than a C would result in him having to pay us back for that class as well as the fractional amount of the stipend that we gave for the semester.  Until that is paid, we will not provide any more financial assistance.  This is his 3rd year of taking classes; he’s technically somewhere in his sophomore year and we won’t finance his learning curve anymore.

It was so hard to listen to my son sobbing in our living room and not offer to rescue him financially.  He must make some hard choices.  If he wants to live on his own…great.  We would prefer he did.

If he chooses an independent life while in college, with it comes the responsibility of making sure he works enough to provide for himself and his expenses, including unexpected events.  A problem is that he is not one that can work a lot of hours and still be able to do school.  He needs to find his own balance to that and I can’t do that for him.  Super frustrating as he has options that he refuses to consider.  He could in theory, go all the way through community college then transfer to the University while living at home, only needing to work enough to finance personal expenses.  He thinks his world would end though if he does that.

We are going to wait for him to figure this situation out rather than tell him what to do.  He’s 21. It’s time for him to take full responsibility for his actions. As hard as it will be to watch, we aren’t going to provide finances to bail him out.

Deep breath.  Stay firm.  Let him learn to fly on his own, including working through the mistakes that come with learning.