Al Roker and Deborah Roberts have joined the flood of emotional parents dropping their kids off at college for the first time.
The Today Show anchor, 68, and ABC News senior correspondent, 61, moved their youngest child, Nick, 20, into college this week, and they couldn’t have been more proud.
“After all the hard work. All the discipline. All the dreaming. All the prayers. His moment to soar has come. (I’m not crying. I promise. 😢),” Deborah wrote in a touching Instagram post with a photo of all three next to a car packed full of college gear.
Soon after, Deborah’s ABC co-stars chimed in with uplifting messages. “Go Nick!,” commented David Muir, anchor of ABC World News Tonight and 20/20. “❤️❤️ so happy seeing this,” wrote Rebecca Jarvis, ABC News chief business, economics and technology correspondent.
Of course, Al couldn’t let the moment go by without a special shoutout to his son, as well. “I guess this is happening. Taking the last one to college. So proud of one @nickroker155,” he captioned a series of similar Instagram pictures of Nick heading off to college.
Al and Deborah — also parents to Leila, 23, and Courtney, 35, who Al had with his ex-wife Alice Bell — have not been shy about sharing pride in their son’s college acceptance achievement. The family has been vocal about Nick’s learning disabilities and how hard he’s worked. The emotion in Deborah’s voice when Al shared a video of Nick getting one of his college acceptances last December is enough to make anyone tear up.
When Deborah talked about Nick getting into college on The View, she got personal about all of his accomplishments.
“Many of you know that we have been on a journey with our son, Nick, who has been, over his lifetime, dealing with learning disabilities, developmental disabilities but he’s accomplished so many things,” she said. “He’s gotten a black belt in taekwondo, he swam competitively, he tried to train for the marathon, although he changed his mind … and he just got accepted into college,” she proudly explained.
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The youngest Roker child has been public about his experiences, as well, even giving a heartfelt sermon back in the spring at his family’s church, St. James. “I have a learning disability and I have worked extra hard to get to this point,” he shared at the time. “This last semester, I earned all As on my report card. It feels really good. But my accomplishments haven’t all been about school. They have also been about perseverance here at St. James.”
We can’t wait to see what’s next for Nick. But we’re also thinking of Al and Deborah, who are now official members of the empty nester club.
As a member of the Special Projects Team, Annie works with the GH Tested program writing up product reviews and roundups and helps plan and run annual expos and events like the GH Parenting Summit, Xmas in July Expo, Cleaning Summit, Winter Essentials Expo, and more. When she’s not working, she can be found running, listening to true crime podcasts, designing graphic collages, or sipping on a margarita.
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