Now that I am in the Empty Nester phase of my life, I have come to realize how much we are just compelled to reinvent ourselves and our relationships with others throughout our lives. There’s no way we can stay in one place, or in one position with another person. I am moving toward change every day, growning and learning, and so are those around me.
That’s easier to grasp when you know your two year old will soon become a five year old. Or a 10-year old will be a teenager one day. We dream for it. We hold on to the precious child who is “now” with 7 candles in their cake and prepare for the inevitable child to come next year with 8.
But who or what prepares us for being a parent of adults, who become parents themselves? We nestle in our arms the children whose parents we once nestled. There’s no way to prepare ourselves for that reality. I understand now the truth that if we do parenting right, we are working our way out of a job. In other words, as much as we love being a parent to our children, those children will one day not be living in our homes and in our lives. We are officially “unemployed.” We love, care and pray for, and teach them 24/7 for 18+ years so they will be adults one day, and good adults, if we’re lucky. We are no longer required to show up every day for the job position of parenting because there aren’t kids around to parent.
That’s the rub. We finally get a grasp of the job, get good and what we do, and then officially are given the pink slip.
I may need to speak to upper management about this one day.
That’s why we have to learn how to step back gracefully, and fulfill a new role in their lives. No one gives us a guidebook or training for that position. One thing I am learning, as painful as it is, is that our wealth of knowledge, our lifetime of experience, our amazing perspectives…are generally not wanted.
They want to do it on their own. Like a toddler determined to rise up, walk a few wobby steps, fall down, and get back up again. Only this time it’s with real life things and experimenting on our precious grandchildren.
Thankfully, my daughters, sons, and their spouses are all amazing people raising amazing families. They are figuring out things on their own and on their timetable. I’d love to give them more advice now and then, but I’ve learned the “WAIT” principle. When I am with my adult children and their spouses and start spilling the Wisdom of the Ages, I need to ask myself, “Why Am I Talking?”
Just: WAIT.
Be quiet. Silently mine away at my own thought nuggets, as golden as they are, but keep them underground. Adult children generally don’t want us to interject our opinions or a life lesson. Unsolicited advice is like a salesman at the door that you don’t want what he’s selling. Consider each adult child with an invisible, “No Soliciting” sign hanging around their neck.
Here are the the things to do while you “WAIT.”
Smile.
Ask yourself, “Why am I talking?” and turn down the dial.
Instead of “If I were you…” say, “I know you’ll figure it out. I have confidence in you.”
Instead of “Here’s what you should do…” say, “If you need any help, you know I’ll always be there for you.”
If you can’t help yourself, soften advice with: “You could take this under consideration.” or “Please take this with a grain of salt.” or “This may not work for you but an idea could be…”
Remember that you also didn’t know much in your younger years. In fact, our adult children are probably doing a lot better than we were at their age, considering all the stuff they are dealing with that we didn’t have to.
Like technology.
Pandemics.
24/7 news reporting.
Economic stressors with housing crisis.
And aging parents who will likely be living into their 90’s, puttering around and muttering to themselves, “When I was younger, I had to…(fill in the blank).”
So learn these lessons well. We’ll be using them for decades to come.
I began writing a journal at 11 years old. I know this because I have proof. Not only is my handwriting adorable, I am charmed that I wanted to have a conversation with my “old” mom self to remind me of what it was like to be 11 years old, 50 years ago today.
I also find it adorable that my very next thought was about my future husband – who is was and where he lived. Little did I know that in a few months, he would be moving from Hawaii to live in my same town and see me at church at the drinking fountain. This 11-year-old boy would know in that moment that I would someday be his wife. So he more than wondered about his future wife. He knew it would be me.
These looseleaf notebook papers are quite precious to me now but since they are written in pencil and deteriorating, I thought I’d pull out quotes to preserve them and report back to my 11-year-old self. I had some pretty strong opinions and told myself a thing or two about what I should do as a mom! Not all my ideas were practical but I admire how determined I was.
So here goes. I’ll insert quotes and then have a conversation with myself 50 years ago.
It’s spring vacation this week and we’re going to the coast. We shopped around for a swimming suit today because the one we ordered I didn’t like. Mom and dad did, of course, they like anything that’s dumb sometimes. It had tank top shoulder straps and was one piece and looked stupid. This is what mom and dad always do in a case like this. It’s two more days until time to leave and mom says, “You will just have to wear the one we ordered because we don’t have enough time to shop for one. I’ve been looking for swimming suits for months and haven’t found one and I doubt you will find one today” (Dad was going downtown and I wanted to go with him to look). So I finally got to go with him and we looked at all the good stores that had swimming suits (three) except one of them which was Fred Meyer. But before we got there, we (dad and I) sat down in the car and he says, “Mom has looked at Fred Meyer lots of times and there wasn’t any there so we think the one you have now is good material, will last a long time, looks modest, and makes you look older. The two choices you have is to wear the one you have or don’t go swimming.” Now here comes the good part. Dad says, “Mom would have a bad trip if I didn’t go swimming” and knowing mom and dad, I’d get into lots of trouble if I don’t go swimming since they paid for the nice hotel. He says I have two choices when I really have one. That’s to wear that retarded swimming suit. But dad said if it would make me feel better, we could go to Fred Meyer. I found a cute swimming suit. I don’t want to be like that when I grow up.
First, can I just say “kudos” to my dad for taking me downtown to shop after my mom had exhausted her resources. He had better things to do than drive around an angsty, grumpy, pre-teen in a small town with very limited retail options. I am embarrassed at how harsh I was on my parents and opinionated I was on nearly every topic. It’s true, dad really only gave me one viable choice with a guilt trip served on the side, but I can’t think of much I’d do differently with such limited options and short deadline. It must have been exhausting to raise finicky me. The fact is, dad did take me to that last store and we did find an acceptable swimming suit and he did buy it for his very undeserving daughter. He kept his patience in this frustrating situation. He could have turned around and gone home with me sulking in the backseat.
So to 11-year-old me: I’m sorry. I was probably “that” parent too. I sure hope so. To my dad: I’m even sorrier. You gave me more than I deserved.
I always say things like when I grow up, I’ll have better lunches than we have now. When I wake up and try to find a civilized breakfast, nothing is there. Mom always says, “I’ll love to come and visit you when you have a family because you’ll be living like rich people, but I hope you marry for love.” Really, I do want to change a lot of things when I grow up. I’ll write as much as I can think of. When I grow up, I can see how much it compares. To start out, FOOD…definitely better breakfasts. I hardly have any now. Bacon, eggs, sausages. And for cold cereal (I don’t know if these will be on the market when I’m older): Trix, Fruit Loops, anything with sweet things in it. Mom always says she doesn’t buy cereal like that because it isn’t good for us and costs too much. But I hope I have enough money from what my husband earns to buy things like that. At least I want breakfasts with bacon, eggs, toast, sausages, oranges and pancakes, juice, WHOLE milk, no powdered milk. I despise powdered milk. I also love frozen grape juice but mom says that costs too much too. I want these things too: Pop-Tarts (in case they don’t have them in the future they are sorta triangular things with icing on top with blueberry, cherry, or strawberry filling). And anything from Hostess. Good things like that.
I can hardly type this out without falling down laughing. Where do I begin with a reasonable reply to my 11-year-old self? How wise my mom was to respond to my irascible temperament with a smile and even response of “I look forward to coming to your house when you are a mom.” She knew how volatile were my opinions and it wasn’t worth engaging in an argument. She took the higher road. And to be fair: I have no idea what I was talking about having no “civilized” food in the house for breakfast. I make it sound like we were raised by wolves. Let me assure you, we were not. What a Drama Queen I was!
Now did I do what I felt so passionately about when I became a mom? How does it compare?
Well, I did buy cold cereal, but my own children can attest that it rarely involved the sugary kind. Sorry, no Trix or Fruit Loops on the regular shopping list. We sometimes had pancakes, eggs, sausage, and juice, but those are Saturday or Sunday morning special times. We didn’t have whole milk but we didn’t have powdered milk, either. Somewhere in between. I rarely bought anything from Hostess and can count on one hand the number of times I bought Pop-Tarts (yes, we still have those villainously diabetes-inducing things 50 years later). Pretty much I’m on par with my mom. And proud of it. In fact, just a few years ago, I wrote this poem:
I wish I will marry someone rich so I don’t have to worry about my problems. But like whenever I get into a discussion with mom about what I want when I grow up, she always ends up saying a lecture about “marry for love and not for money.” I WILL mom, unless I’m really crazy when I’m older. Marriage is the most important thing in my life. It decides what I will be doing for the rest of my life. It decides how I will raise my kids, how my house will be like, who I will be spending the rest of my life with. It will decide a lot of things. I want to get a great big house with big rooms and lots of rich furniture in it. But there is one problem: I HATE to clean. Another thing I have to figure out is that I don’t want to spoil my children and give them neat stuff but want them to be grateful, kind, sweet little angels.
To myself 50 years ago: I found the right balance and made the best decisions. I don’t own a big house with big rooms and lots of rich furniture. It’s easier to clean and I don’t stress about keeping up with all the nicest, most expensive designs. I can assure my 11-year-old self that I wasn’t crazy when I became older. I didn’t spoil my children and they are the most kind, sweet little angels. Most importantly, I did marry for love. He’s the love of my life. I am the richest woman in the world.
Back in the day when the world was only in black and white, there was a 1960s television show called, “Kids say the darndest things.” Ark Linkletter was the host who would interview adorably precocious kids who said all kinds of hilarious things. Bill Cosby revived it later in the 90s. It was based on young kids who didn’t quite get things right and tickled us with their innocent inaccuracies.
Well, I’m here to tell you that kids sometimes never grow up. Teenagers can be just as naive and ridiculously funny (with an emphasis on “ridiculous”). Which can also be scary because these are the same adolescents who are supposedly preparing to launch into adulthood in a few years…or seconds. Some of them will be leaving home and trying to survive in the real-world jungle on their own without being eaten by the realities of navigating ATM machines, grocery carts, or the post office for the first time.
The following are ACTUAL quotes from just-such-Innocents AKA teenagers. I’ll leave it to you to decide if we want these kids to vote, cook our fast-food burgers, procreate, and become mayor some day.
“Do we have a zip code?”
“Do guys have ovaries?”
“Can I use a Christmas stamp to mail something in July?”
(As mom is going through menopause) 13-year-old said, “Yeah, it’s hot out today. I bet you’re really sweating because of your dementia.”
(a text): Happy Mother’s Day. Did you move my charger?
Mom sent her teen to the grocery story with a list. Self check out asked how many cilantro he was buying. He counted each stem and the total came out to $60 for one bunch of cilantro.
Teenager said he couldn’t read the letter from his grandfather because it was in Spanish. Cursive…it was in cursive.
Teenager daughter’s car broke down. She got hysterical “cuz all the emojis came on.”
“Where is the elbow grease?”
Freshman in college was horrified the cafeteria was serving whale. Turned out to be “okra” not “orca.”
Teenager was upset after receiving his first paycheck because they took out some for a FICA guy and he didn’t tell them that they could!
Teen texts mom from Subway: “What do I usually order?”
Son needed mom to order a croissant for his date to the dance (corsage).
Teen asks mom when her social security card expires. Mom says, “When you die.”
Teen was making a delivery and called the customer for the gate code to get into the community. The teen on the other end of the phone said, “hashtag 137”
Teen fills out blood type: “Good.”
Son fills out a job application and asks dad, “Have I ever been convicted of a felony?”
“What time zone am I in?
“How do I make half a sandwich? What am I supposed to do with the other piece of bread?”
13-year-old son went in for an eye exam. The nurse asked him to cover his right eye and read the 6th line. He just stood there. She asked him to go ahead and read the 6th line. Finally, after a few minutes of an awkward silence, the nurse said, “Honey, can’t you see the line?” He replied, “Of course I can see it. I just can’t pronounce that word.”
20-year-old daughter asked her parents who would be her guardian if both her parents died. “Um, you’re an adult. You are you own guardian.”
At the opening for a teenager’s new bank account:
Bank employee: Can I get your social?
Teen: (proceeds to give her IG handle)
“Is euthanasia a country or a continent?”
Mom was waiting for some cancer biopsy test results and her son called to ask, “So what’s the result of your autopsy?”
“What happens when all the miles run out on the car?”
Son forgot his tube of face cleanser and had no idea how to use a bar of soap. “Do I wet it? Do I wet my hands first? Or do I wet my face first? I don’t understand what is happening here.”
From the recent eclipse:
“If I look at the sun too long it will damage my urethra.”
“Can I watch in a t-shirt or do I have to be completely covered?”
“I’ve been staring at the sun all week to get my eyes ready.”
“How many days is it going to be dark for?”
Well, folks. These are the real kids walking around in our neighborhoods with sharp scissors and making decisions behind the wheel of cars. I hope we can do better turning teens into functioning adults. I wouldn’t want to run into one of them in a dark alley without their bottle of face cleanser. Who knows what crazy thing they might do.
A Spoonful of Parenting 