Parenting 500

Your children are your children no matter their age

“I did? When was this?”

“Let’s see, I was about fourteen or fifteen. That would make it around twenty years ago. I was a mixed-up kid back then. It was a foggy morning. I was going to sneak . . .”
Instantly I was there, standing in the West Los Angeles fog on our wet driveway, waiting. Something had wakened me at an unprecedented early hour. I had no idea what woke me, but my mother instinct sensed that it was about him. I had to investigate. I crept down the hall and peeked into his bedroom. Empty.

I checked the kitchen, the den, the back patio. Then, with the quiet precision common to all spies, I eased the front door open and tiptoed toward the driveway, stopping near the corner of the house. There I waited, knowing something, having no idea what I knew.

Before long I saw a shadowy form approaching through the fog. As it neared, I saw that it was indeed my son, backpack in hand, moving with a stealth I had never known he possessed. I folded my arms and assumed The Pose.

“Just where do you think you’re going?” I demanded. He had no words; just stared at me for a moment, turned away and headed for his room.

I don’t recall our discussing it much afterward. I guess my fantastic parenting skills precluded any explanation. Wherever he was going, I didn’t want him there.

So, twenty years later, I was bemused by his remark. “Surely I saved your life more than once!” I bragged.

“Yeah, but this was critical. There were some kids at school going to the beach. They asked me to come with them. They were a kinda fast crowd, and I was pretty sure there’d be pot. I was uncomfortable with the whole thing, but I didn’t have the nerve to tell them I couldn’t do it. When I saw you standing there, I felt a sort of relief. The amazing thing is that instead of getting all mad, even at that age, I was glad.”

“Yeah, you always need your mother,” I said. “Sometimes I still need mine.”

“Really?” he said, “Well, I sure needed you then.”

My daughter, three years younger, was better at the game than her brother. She mostly managed to avoid conflict. I didn’t know about some of her exploits until years later when she decided to share some choice anecdotes. Apparently it was okay to tell, now that she was all grown up and a mother herself.

“You know, the beach was almost irresistible,” she said. “When we had a sleepover we’d go down there. Pot everywhere, people making out − it was disgusting. But oh! The adventure of it all.”

“Your brother tried doing that and he didn’t make it,” I said. “You must have learned from his experience. . . . So, did you use pot?”

“No!” she said. “We were pretty young and the whole thing was more about scaring ourselves than really wanting to join in.”

I felt a very slight stirring of – what? Oh yes, the Mother Alarm, apparently not defunct, even after all these years. I was no longer in charge of her, so maybe the alarm was trying to tell me that I was being spared. And if so, I was pretty sure about what she was omitting. Had it come to that – my child protecting her poor old mother?

Sometimes you have to give it over, as they say. I would have looked foolish striking The Pose. There is a lot of pleasure in watching my grown-up children manage their own children. I try not to judge them because it’s quite possible that my parenting triumphs were greatly outnumbered by my inadequacies. Did I turn a blind eye back then? For sure, if not about their dangerous jaunts, almost certainly about other exploits that will forever remain with them.

It’s great to be a spectator. It’s great to have my children as my friends. But the fact is, you never stop being a parent. Luckily, despite stumbles large and small we have managed to struggle to adulthood, both theirs and mine.