Mom and Mothering Adult Children



Well if you're wondering about that topic, so am I! Both things popped into my head and I couldn't choose so I have decided to tackle both. You'll find they are strangely related.

So I am, very proudly, the child of a young mother. My mother was 17 when I was born. Just a child herself. My parents had been married for 13 months when I made my entrance into their lives. I was a very wanted and planned child IF a 17 year old can plan. Today I look at my barely 18 year old daughter and think to myself "No way."


Mother and Big Girl -2006





My mother and I have always had a relationship more like best friends. Now don't get me wrong, I KNOW the difference between when her "mother hat" is on and her "friend cap" is on. It's all in the tone of voice. You know what I mean.  I'm not sure if this type of relationship is a good or bad thing. While it has worked nicely for us, it set me up with a tendency to want to drag that Psyche along with me into parenthood and I don't think that has been so good at times.
Today Mom and I are best friends. We can talk about anything and she knows most of my deepest darkest secrets. In fact, she probably knows ALL of them and I just don't know that she knows! Get it?  I know many of hers as well, but because I AM her child I prefer to think and hope that she does have some things hidden away. We have been through a lot together.

It's a bit sad that as time has gone by, the tables have, at times, turned. There are times now that I feel as though I am thrown into more of a mothering role and she is the one needing to be mothered. I find that I am rallying her to do more, be more, see more. I am coaching her to eat, take care of herself, not waste money, look after he bills and keep up with us four children. Twenty years ago I would have never dreamed it would be this way. Time.

By today's standards I guess you could say I was also a young mother though not as young as my mother. I was 21 and a half when Biggest Boy was born. I had been married just 16 months and had moved to the center of the USA to begin married life and motherhood. Twenty six and a half years have passed since that snowy December morning. Now I too am mothering an adult. But...I am doing it very differently. In fact, I am mothering THREE adults as Boy Two and  Big Girl are now nearly 23 and 18 respectively.

The 3 "adult kids" circa 2006
2/3 weren't adults yet!

The saying that "all kids are different" is extremely obvious in our family. Biggest Boy has been my challenge for many years now. There was a bond formed between us at birth. I struggled with his pregnancy and birth and today I am still struggling. It's so different yet so much the same. The struggle to keep him alive and well. Yet, while he was "in me" I could control to a degree his little life and even as he was born and grew up, today I can not. Today I have no say in what he does, how he does it, if he gets rest, eats properly and has good wholesome friends. Today he is a grown man, responsible for himself.

I still get those middle of the night or afternoon phone calls that begin "Hey Mommy" and I know. I know that either he is fishing for advice or needs something. He doesn't call me "Mommy" unless one of the two (or both) are needed.  Any other time it's  simply "Ma". The issue with ME is: at what point do you say enough is enough and pull away allowing the kid to just either sink or swim? I can't always be that life preserver for him or for any of my five brood for that matter (although the younger two are much too young to cut bait and let sink)  I think that at 26 you should no longer call your parents and ask for a plane ticket for no real reason other than YOU can't afford it. Life's lesson is "If YOU can't afford it then you don't go" NOT "Call Mom and Dad they'll help out" Heck, at 26 I was mother to 2 young boys and living in a foreign country!

By the same token, we have been "carrying" Boy 2 for long enough. He is STILL a full time student in University after five years. Thus far we have paid all or a portion of his rent and tuition and bought books and given allowances as well as bought every ticket to come home for breaks and summers. AND we have paid his cell bill every month. He has changed majors twice meaning that his studies have been prolonged but I have finally put my "Momma hat" on and said enough is enough. Next year, his rent, tuition, bills and so forth are just that...HIS.

It's now time for Big Girl to head off to her world of Higher Education. Our money and time will be focused on her for the next several years. Those calls of desperation will, no doubt, come and we need to be ready to offer our advice and help until she has reached the level of adulthood where she can make good, reasonable choices and decisions and the we can pull away...slowly, just as we have "tried" to do with the older boys.

Amazingly enough, we as parents get wiser with each child. Our learning never stops and we evolve into better parents as we walk the parenting road. While Biggest Boy held on far too long, Boy 2 was unleashed a bit sooner.  I think Big Girl will do her job in teaching us, furthermore, that... girls are different!




Circa Christmas 2009


We have a long way to go it's true....but boy have we come so far!

Have a super terrific weekend! It's going to be a rainy, chilly one for us. I have even heard rumblings of the dreaded "S" word for Sunday....SNOW!  But we DO live in Canada ya know!!