I have recently been talking to a close relative who is suffering through the granddaddy of all rites of passage in the parenting experience; her only kid just went to college. Ah college. That heady moment when you are finally let loose to run your own life. You are 18 or 19 years old, you have years of life experience under your belt, you know everything, and you are probably doing most of your living on someone else's dime. Could anything be better?
Talking with her has reminded me of the reality that I have always had in the back of my head as I raised the two people I have brought into this world myself - my number one obligation as a parent is to make myself obsolete. What a dichotomy for us as human beings, to both grow our love and our distance from the very person for whom we have the greatest responsibility, and all at the same time. It is heartbreaking, and breathtaking, and a thrill ride like none other.
Of course, you don't start out the parenting road thinking you are letting go any time soon. The first time you hold that tiny little helpless life in your hands, you think to yourself, I am going to be the best parent ever. I will never yell at this little person, we will have the perfect relationship, I will be the uber-parent, better than any parent has ever been. Because, after all, I have taken notes about everything that my own parents got wrong, in addition to noting what they got right, so I can get it all right from the get go.
This lasts until the first time that kid cries uncontrollably no matter what you do, while you also try to make dinner and finish your work that you had to bring home because you were so useless on the job, due to worrying about said kid at the daycare you so casually selected before you laid eyes on him. Ah, the angst. Ah, the screaming. Oh wait. That was me. And the kid is still crying, because whatever you are doing isn't quite good enough, so you are crying too, because there really isn't anything else to do. At that moment, you find yourself thinking, WHEN does this end? I don't think I can stand 18 years of this.
That is the first moment where you consciously start letting go, although you don't realize it at the time. They say infants don't differentiate themselves from their mothers right away, it takes time for them to understand that they are separate individuals, apart from someone else. I think the same is true for mothers. Giving birth does not sever the psychological umbilical cord. That happens when you live life and have to deal with the consequences of the rash decision to have a child in the first place.
There are many rites of passage in our children's lives that we celebrate and document and photograph and videotape so we can relive it over and over again. This is an especially useful tool when they are 15 and driving you mad, in every sense of the word. Personally, I prefer Memory Lane to the fast lane of having a 15 year old girl in my house, and now that she is 16, I think she would agree.
There are other, less obvious, less known or noted moments when they declare their separateness, their independence, their selfness, when we can only hold our breath and hope that we have done our job well enough to let them go. I think it is those moments that are most difficult for us as mothers, and perhaps most important for our children, because if you have done the job right, you are hearing, "I don't need you any more," but you still need them, and you still want them to need you.
The first time I felt that assertion of self was one sorry Halloween when my son was a year old. He was only a couple months old his first Halloween, so that wasn't much to write home about, but I was ready and waiting for the second one. I had his outfit all picked out, it was an adorable one, with hat and the whole nine yards, and he was going to be the cutest tot on the sidewalk. Except that I forgot to consult with him, and he was not in the mood for any of it. He screamed. He cried. He squirmed. He threw himself on the floor. The low point was when I found myself sitting,very lightly, on top of him so I could hold him still while I forced this costume onto his angry little body.
My mother, who was watching in some amusement, I am sure, finally pointed out that an unhappy child was probably not worth the trouble, and perhaps I should revise my game plan, because he clearly wasn't going to give me the satisfaction of winning that night. I took a deep breath, looked at what I had been reduced to by my own desperate desire to create the perfect holiday moment, and learned the biggest lesson of my parenting life that night - I had it all backward. The child leads, and you are behind them shouting directions but you cannot control the way they ultimately go.
Of course, being the control freak that I am, I had to have reminders more times than I care to remember along the way. And I have two children who have been consistently pleased to provide them, I might add. Thanks very much to them for the humbling, by they way.
Going to kindergarten seems to be considered the rite of passage for the school aged child, but I think it's first grade. Suddenly, they are spending more time with their peers and their teacher, and you are relegated to their home life. You are still their main mom, the one person that is most important to them, but you are slipping. Suddenly they are seeing how other kids interact with their parents, and they are hearing new things. They pick up language even you didn't know, and they think about things you didn't realize they had heard about.
When my daughter was very little, she learned that children were working in factories in the third world, and that they didn't go to school. She was devastated by the Weekly Reader story, and she wanted to make a difference. So she went through her belongings [Charity Barbie saves the world. News at ten with Ken.] and held a garage sale to raise money to send to an organization that worked to stop the abusive practice.
She researched charitable organizations, she learned about the root causes, and she led the way to raising $100 for the children of the world to have a better life. That may not sound like much, but it made all the difference in the world to her, because she had done something about the problem, instead of just bemoaning the situation. I watched in awe, because I saw a little girl declaring herself a world citizen, and doing something to leave it a better place than she found it. I knew that she was taking another step away from me and into her own life, and I was proud, but felt that tug just the same.
We make a fuss as our children transition through school, making note of each new grade, and the biggest fuss of all comes when they graduate from high school. There is much talk of turning pages, new chapters, adulthood, but the next day, nothing has really changed. That change doesn't come until they go college somewhere else, and you wake up the first morning and they are not there. It isn't a moment that you photograph, it isn't even really something you talk about, except perhaps with a friend who is going through the same experience, but it is the moment you, as a parent, feel the pull on that tie that binds you to your child, and it hurts.
For me, that time came not in his freshman year, but at the start of my son's sophomore year in college. Although I certainly missed him freshman year, it was a hard year for our family as we adjusted to a totally different reality of divorce and single parenthood and a host of other changes, and that took the edge off missing him, I think.
His 20th birthday present was a truck full of furniture from Ikea for his new apartment, his first real home away from home, that he was setting up with his roommate. I will never forget the empty feeling in the pit of my stomach as I watched that truck backing away from me in the Ikea parking ramp, knowing that he was driving away into his own life, one in which I played a very reduced role. It was poignant, I was on the verge of tears, all these feelings rushing through me, when I had a small reminder that my role wasn't quite over. I heard a crunch, and looked up to see the top of the van wedged against the ceiling of the ramp. Uff da. It seems neither one of us was quite ready for prime time.
I don't know if it is easier to let the oldest one go, because you still have another one at home that needs you, but I suspect it is. However, I think that the second one is more independent, harder to manage, less tied, simply because there is less of you to go around from the start, and they have to hit the ground running just to keep up. Erin has always been my buddy, my sidekick, and she has always been the one pulling me, something that will probably continue into my senior maturity.
When she was little, all my pants were stretched out on the left leg because she was always grabbing hold of me to reassure herself that I was there while she experienced the world. She was the one who asked me to come to school for lunch, and she loved having me volunteer in her classroom. I was room mom for all of elementary school, except the last year when I went on strike, and I even was allowed to volunteer in middle school without a complaint.
She recently told me a funny story from school. Her psychology teacher was talking about helicopter parents in his classroom. He discussed what they are and how they behave, then asked the students in the room if any of them had helicopter parents. Erin was surprised to note that no one in the room raised their hand, since she knows many of those kids, and can verify that they do, indeed, have the aforementioned issue in their families. After a long moment, she finally raised her hand, to which the teacher responded with the question, "Do you think you have a helicopter parent?" She replied, "No, I think my mom has helicopter kids."
She is funny, of course, but she doesn't know what a compliment that was to me, and won't until she has a child of her own. It seems she doesn't realize how desperately I want to hold her hand, keep her safe from the hurts and the pain and the harsh realities of the life she will lead. When she has a fight with a friend, my heart literally aches for her, and when she is happy, the same heart soars. I can't bear to read comments on my son's column, because I can't stand to see someone cut him down [that's my job, don't you know?] The hardest sacrifice I make as a parent is to do nothing, and let them live their own lives, and they don't even appreciate it, because they don't know I'm doing it.
I feel for my cousin as she navigates this rough path, one that every parent experiences at one point or another. I know she feels like she has been handed the booby prize right now, and it hurts. I wish I could give her a crystal ball to see the future, because I know she and her child will grow a bond that is more than parent and child. The relationship ahead is that of a friend and advisor to each other, one which goes both ways, and is the richer for that change. That is not only a rite of passage, but a right of being a parent, one which is a blessing to both of you.
