Listen up son, I know that in the past your mother and I have put a lot of pressure on you to work hard, study and get good grades, but now that you’re in university, I want to let you know that there’s more to life than just school work.

This is your time, and you’ve got to get out there and really experience life, a life that is at least several thousand miles from the house your mother and I live in.

First of all though, let me just make it clear to you how proud I am of you for graduating high school with really tremendous marks and all those scholarships. Believe me, I was really starting to worry we weren’t going to be able to afford send you to a school that is as far away from where we live as this one.

But now that you’ve done that, feel free to relax a bit. I mean, don’t flunk out, but also don’t worry if your grades aren’t quite as perfect as they were before. I just want you to have some fun and make sure you make as many great memories that aren’t related to living with us as possible.

I was starting to worry we weren’t going to be able to send you to a school so far away from where I live.

Listen, university isn’t just a place to learn math and history and how to grow a soul-patch, it’s a place where you should be learning to socialize. So get out there, go to parties, join clubs . . . those are great opportunities to, I don’t know, meet a future wife you could move in with or maybe find some pals who are from some far away nation that you could decide you want to move to and then never come back to Canada.

I just want you to come into your own and find yourself. And if the place you find yourself is in a foreign nation without any phones or way to contact us, I fully support you!

I know I should’ve told you this in person and not just dropped you off this weekend saying “see you at Christmas” before writing this article for your school’s newspaper in which I reveal that I really don’t want you to come home ever and if you try to, the locks on all our doors will have been changed . . . but somehow this seemed better.

So son, please have the time of your life, and don’t just study all the time, because I really hope I never have to see you again for the rest of your life. Have fun!