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The fundamental question that our article addresses is why do upper-middle class parents use money and resources on education for their children instead of keeping these resources for themselves? Family resources are always finite. Money spent on one thing cannot be spent on another. Whether parents view it this way or not, money spent on children cannot be spent on themselves. However, in some symbolic sense, money can be spent simultaneously two ways if the children are perceived as extensions of the parents. We examined the interviews of upper middle class families for attitudes about paying for college, and focused on the themes emerged: perceived benefits of college, assumptions about the use of money, and elitist vs. democratic views of education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on interviews with 30 sets of parents, this article examines how the respondents experience the process of "letting go" of their college-bound children. The focus of our analysis is on how the parents evaluate the meanings of their children's leaving home and adopt strategies to facilitate the process for both themselves and the departing child. Our interview materials allowed us to recognize and then parse the paradoxical task faced by parents of fostering "attached individuation" for both themselves and their children. In the article's data sections we address four broad and persistent themes that emerged from our conversations with parents. First, we consider how parents manage the range of sometimes-conflicting emotions generated by the letting go process. Second, we analyze the content of parents' worries as a good unobtrusive measure of how they understand the transition to college as a ritual marker in their children's lives. Third, we show how negotiations about geography -- about proper distance from home -- in choosing a college reflect efforts to impose a measure of gradualism into the letting go process. Finally, we report on how parents theorize the impact of a child's departure on family relationships in general. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]