All those new backpacks attached to all those young backs recently filed off to school — kindergarten to college bound. There’s no way for parents to get past that bittersweet, conflicting moment of feeling, “Yippee! I’m free!” coupled with, “Wait, we didn’t do everything I wanted to do this summer!”

But school marches on, and the kids march with it.

So we wait for them to come back home, and then we ask the inevitable question, “What did you learn in school today?” The little ones talk about finding their cubby hole, and recess and lunch, and the day was so long, and do they really have to go back again tomorrow?

The older ones talk about finding their niche, and how much they miss recess, and how crowded the lunchroom was, and the day sped by so fast, and they’re hoping tomorrow is better.

We always ask about what they learned. We never take a moment to ask ourselves, what did we learn while they were at school? But maybe we should.

Especially in the first few days of school, answers to that question can be poignant, even painful. As in …

We learn (once again) that summer vacation starts out slowly, spreading endlessly before us, and we have plenty of time to do all the things we want to do. Then somewhere in the middle of that vastness we blink and it’s August, and we’re scrambling to get in the last of this and the first of that while frantically wondering, Where did it go?

We learn that it is possible to be too busy, too involved, too booked. When extra-curricular turns into extra-extra-curricular, it’s time to start dumping, to realign and find balance between sports and activities and camps, etc., so that the scheduled time doesn’t exceed the relaxing-playing-exploring-growing time. Else what is summer vacation for?

We learn how fast the kids grow up. Shopping for school clothes punches us in the face. We’re looking for shoes — but wait, did your feet really grow two sizes in one summer? Do flip flops make that happen? And no, you can’t use the long pants you had last spring because they’re 4 inches off the ground now. When did this happen? Somewhere between the visit to the zoo and your soccer camp?

We learn there’s a guilty moment of, “How could I let this happen when there’s a part of me that doesn’t celebrate you growing up?” It’s a selfish part that wants me to be the mom and you to be the kid forever and ever, because this role is fulfilling, familiar and fun. But there you are, growing up and growing away.

So you blink, and then your “child” hands you his square hat and tassel for safekeeping and walks away, smiling.

We bring them up for that very reason. We raise them to leave us. In fact, it’s kind of a failure if they don’t. But no one ever takes time to teach us how to train our hearts and minds for that moment, so we’re ripped in half when it happens.

No words can describe the whirlwind school journey — a bittersweet happiness that remembers when she was in kindergarten, and he was in third grade, and she rambled off to junior high full of high expectations and low self-esteem, and he sauntered into high school with a jaunty attitude that covered up all his insecurities. We parents stand on the sidelines watching it all unfold, praying for minimal damage in the inevitable nosedives and plummets that will occur, praying the kid comes out the other end of that sausage grinder still intact.

But that’s so far away. So for now, we cling to the luxury of not thinking about it. We are OK because today we just get to ask, “So, what did you do in school today?” and let the future happen later.

It’s how we learn.

D. Louise Brown lives in Layton. She writes a biweekly column for the Standard-Examiner.