When my oldest son first started making noise about moving to China, my mom-worryometer went to Red Level 4 with all the things I feared for him. I worried about him getting into a stranger's van, thinking it was a Chinese taxi. I worried about him trying to pose from the top of the Great Wall and getting blown off by high winds. I worried about him eating things with tentacles on a dare. And I worried about him getting sick and not knowing enough Chinese to tell the doctor to use modern medicine to cure him and not acupressure or some bullshit.
What I didn't worry about was not being able to see him for a year at a time.
Except for the high winds, those other things did actually happen. What also happened was that I went into a near panic when I realized I wasn't going to see him until his first visit home in 13 months.
"You've got to get Skype," my high school friend Jim told me.
I had not yet heard of Skype, which was in its infancy at the time. Jim, who lived in the Czech Republic, had sent both of his sons to college in the States and claims that the only reason he could bear that heart-wrenching piece of parenting was because we now had things from The Jetsons.
"You'll love it," Jim said, "because you can see them and talk to them just like they're sitting across from you."
Skype is how I learned that in China, the heat is turned off in all buildings on a pre-set date, regardless of a late cold snap in the Spring, and turned back on in all buildings on a pre-set date, regardless of a young American guy whose nose has turned blue.
"Are you wearing a winter coat?" I asked my son as we sat Skyping one day. He was sitting in his living room.
"Yeah, the heat's been turned off but it's still pretty cold out," he said.
"Well, can't you complain to your landlord?" I asked, clueless that when your landlord is the Ministry of Put a Sweater On Comrade, that's not really an option.
Yes, I learned more about his life in China via Skype than a long string of phone conversations could possibly allow. When he got a dog, I knew it wasn't working out even before I asked "How is the dog working out?" There was a hole in his favorite sweater, his glasses were taped together and he looked exhausted. The dog wouldn't make an appearance, but I knew he was nearby, since my son's left arm and kept jerking downward.
"You're trying to pet him, aren't you?" I asked.
"The dog's not really working out," he said. As it turns out, he was trying to strangle the dog.
Score another one for Skype.
I think it's great that video chats are no longer only for people in sci-fi movies, Twilight Zone episodes, and for Mr. Spacely's video conferences on the days that George worked from home.
Skype is now another arrow in the quiver of parents everywhere and not just when their kids move to a foreign country. Skype is perfect for parents of college kids who think they chose a school far away enough that they don't have to put up with his mom's meddling, nagging, nosiness and incessant question "Are you sure a parent will be there?"
You want to see what your kid's dorm room looks like when his mother isn't there to gather up the empty Gatorade bottles that litter his floor. And those better be Gatorade bottles, mister.
For now I'm limiting my Skyping to my own offspring and others who have seen me at the pre-surgery prep level of makeuplessness. I've seen my own face on the Skype screen and it's not exactly forgiving. When the camera first pops up on the screen, if your screen is tilted just so you'll look like you're peering down into your own grave.
Better to intimidate your independent children with.
