Posts Tagged ‘parenting’
Cindy on March 10th, 2010
A shaky child on a bicycle for the first time needs both support and freedom. The realization that this is what the child will always need can hit hard.” ~Sloan Wilson
Note: This essay was published earlier this year (“A New Season of Parenting”) in Metro Parent magazine. It was written especially for friends whose children will be starting college this fall…
It’s going to be a roller coaster year for a friend whose youngest child will graduate from high school in May, then head out of state to college in August. My friend is already working through some conflicting emotions. She gets a little teary at the thought of one less place setting at the family dinner table, yet she’s thrilled about the prospect of a keeping neater house (and gaining a spare bedroom) in the fall.
My son’s last year in high school was a bittersweet time for me, too. Like Janus, the ancient Roman god of gateways, beginnings, and endings, I found myself looking forward and backward as my son closed the door on high school and prepared for his new life at college.
When I wasn’t caught up in the May-June whirlwind of award banquets and graduation ceremonies, I spent a lot of time wondering where his childhood had flown. When no one else was looking, I’d search for it in a family album crammed with precious photos of birthday parties, Fourth of July bike parades, Cub Scout camps, Christmas mornings, and Halloween nights.
Around that time, it also hit me that one of the sweetest gifts of midlife is the maternal amnesia that blurs the other memories of infancy and childhood — the post-partum blues; the exploding diapers; the marathon temper tantrums. Not to mention those snarky adolescent insults. When our kids prepare to leave home for college, after all, we tend to focus on the Hallmark moments.
All of this reminiscing seems a bit maudlin to me now. But revisiting the highlights of my son’s childhood helped soothe my empty-nest blues. Pausing to savor and reflect on my early years of motherhood made it easier for me to move on. It also made me grateful for the privilege of raising a child — and grateful for the chance to spend time with so many terrific young people.
During the high school years, for example, our home was a favorite gathering place for my son’s friends, so I always stocked up on extra snacks and soft drinks. Looking in our refrigerator in those days, you wouldn’t have guessed that we were a small family of three. When I unloaded my grocery cart in the checkout line, clerks would often ask if I was feeding a very large family or hosting a party. I always answered yes to both questions.
And since my “extended family” left for college when my son did, my feelings of loss encompassed more than one child.
Taking flight, moving on
Grieving isn’t unusual in the early weeks of empty nesting. Raising children gives us a sense of mooring and purpose. That sense of mooring suddenly disappears when they move out – and getting used to a quieter household can be a huge adjustment. As essayist Marion Winik wrote, “Once you’re a mother you can never think something else is the most important thing.”
Still, few parents I know are comfortable with the term “empty nest.” An empty nest sounds pathetic and forlorn – adjectives that hardly fit the millions of accomplished women and men who are reinventing their lives after child-rearing.
“A word signifying a void or a vacuum is an unfair way to describe a time when life can be full of growth possibilities,” note Laura Kastner and Jennifer Wyatt in The Launching Years: Strategies for Parenting from Senior Year to College Life (Three Rivers Press). But even more important than finding a new catchphrase for the empty nest is shifting our focus to the fresh opportunities awaiting our kids on the other side of the threshold.
Our job, after all, is to help them learn how to leave us; to let go.
It’s also our job to get on with our own lives. Just as we hope our kids will thrive without our constant supervision, they need to believe we’ll be just fine, too. In the long run, helicopter parenting doesn’t do anyone any good.
So, even if your kids aren’t leaving home this year, it’s not too early to sign up for those ballet lessons you’ve postponed for ages. Or to rediscover the sport or the craft that kept you juiced up and inspired before your name was Mom. Pat yourself on the back for a job well done. A new season of parenting will unfold. – Cindy La Ferle
– Nest photo by Cindy La Ferle –
Cindy on January 5th, 2010
When my son was growing up, I wrote pieces for parenting magazines, including Detroit’s own MetroParent. Now that I’m an empty nester, I’ve naturally moved on to other topics. But I was honored last year when the managing editor of MetroParent invited me to submit an essay on preparing for a new season of parenthood — the empty nest. It’s fun to revisit a magazine that I often used as a resource when I was a younger mom. My piece now appears in the January 2010 issue, and readers in southeast Michigan can find the magazine at bookstores, libraries, and newsstands. – CL
Cindy on December 5th, 2009
“The holiest of all holidays are those kept by ourselves in silence and apart; the secret anniversaries of the heart.” — Henry W. Longfellow
More than 24 years ago, my ob-gyn predicted I’d have a Christmas baby, give or take a few days. The doctor wasn’t too far off the mark, really, since Nate was born on December 6th, the feast day of St. Nicholas.
Known as the Bishop of Myra (now Turkey) in the 4th century, St. Nicholas earned his reputation for secret gift-giving by putting coins in the shoes of those who left them out for him. Word of his generosity echoed throughout the centuries. According to one legend, medieval nuns honored the eve of December 6th by anonymously placing baskets of clothing and food on the doorsteps of the needy. And not surprisingly, St. Nicholas was the role model for Victorian England’s merry Father Christmas. Outdoing the three wise men of the Nativity, the original St. Nick can be credited for establishing Christmas as the season of gifting.
Feast days aside, I remember the day my son was born as though it were yesterday, thanks in part to a three-page “birth report” I’d been assigned to write after returning home from the hospital.
Everyone in my final Lamaze class was instructed to write such a report in less than two weeks after giving birth. (Sleepless nights and postpartum depression were no excuse.) We were told to record every detail we remembered, every emotion we felt, as accurately as possible. Keeping us honest, the instructor insisted that we mail her a copy on deadline. At first, the whole thing seemed like a cruel homework assignment; another task to juggle between midnight feedings. Now, I appreciate it as the gift it was meant to be.
Back then I wasn’t comfortable typing my feelings on paper — especially feelings that were new and raw and deeply personal. Up until then, I’d been writing newspaper stories about art gallery openings and local hamburger joints. Regardless, I took up the challenge. I recorded the hour my water broke (I was watching Bill Bonds on the 11:00 news); the snowy drive to the hospital; the waves of contractions I surfed after my labor was induced. I confessed the irrational fears and worries I’d nursed prior to delivery. I wrote that I was grateful to be fully awake during the birth, and grateful that I was able to witness the miraculous first moment when Doug, Nate, and I became a family:
I recall the medicinal smell, the colors, the faces, and sounds in the delivery room, and even though there had been no time for the nurses to get the mirror up above me for the delivery, I loved being able to turn my head and see Nathan wiggling on the table right next to me, and to have my husband on the other side of me….
While I didn’t realize it at the time, the birth report was my first real attempt at a personal essay. It’s riddled with too many adverbs, and weighted with TOO MANY WORDS IN CAPS for emphasis. Parts of it sound wooden and clinical. Even so, it’s one of the most important pieces of writing I’ve ever done, and today I keep it with a collection of precious letters in my writing office.
Nate hasn’t been home for his birthday in several years. While it took a little time to adjust to his absence during and after his college years, I’m at peace with the fact that our lives are moving ahead just as they should. Nate has his own place in Chicago now, and he travels to other parts of the country for his job. His dad and I are fiercely proud of him for having crafted a remarkably good life for himself.
So we celebrate his birthday a few days early when he returns to Detroit for Thanksgiving. And after he heads back to Chicago, we still honor the ritual of mailing another birthday card and another small gift (maybe something from the cats) that will hopefully arrive in his mailbox on or near December 6th.
St. Nicholas Day is my birthday too. It’s the day I was born into motherhood, the most rewarding work on my resume. Once in a while, when I’m alone at my desk, I’ll open the file where I keep the faded blue envelope scrawled with the words “Birth report.” I unfold the pages and reread favorite parts, still amazed by the gift of a day it describes. – Cindy La Ferle
Cindy on October 31st, 2009
Children are a great comfort in old age, and they help you reach it much faster, too.” — Lionel M. Kaufman
Take it from a seasoned parent. There comes a time in every mother’s life when she realizes parts of her wardrobe shouldn’t be flaunted in front of teenage boys. And I’m not talking about thong underwear.
This hit me several years ago while the family and I were getting ready to visit my favorite art fair in Royal Oak — an annual summer event that typically draws crowds of creative types, including some neighbors we haven’t seen all winter. I wanted to dress for the occasion. Scouring my closet, I chose a nice black T-shirt and an ankle-length peasant skirt. It was a departure from my traditional blazer-with-jeans uniform, but still within the bounds of good taste.
Or so I thought. The silver bracelet is what got me in trouble. Rescued from a flea-market, the vintage cuff was two inches wide and etched with a subtle ethnic design. Not all that remarkable – unless, of course, you were looking at it through the discerning eyes of an adolescent boy.
“You’re not wearing that giant bracelet in public, are you?” asked Nate, glaring at my wrist.
“Why not?” I shot back.
“You look like a Babylonian… Or maybe a barbarian,” the kid said, choosing his words carefully. A week earlier he announced that my feet looked “Cro-Magnon” in sandals. Apparently I’d morphed into a badly dressed savage.
What could I do? When the same kid was a cranky infant, I couldn’t treat his diaper rash without consulting a stack of childcare guides. Soon enough, though, Doug and I were navigating the choppy waters of parenthood without much advice from Penelope Leach or T. Berry Brazelton, the most respected parenting experts of our era. Living by our wits, we maneuvered through mealtime face-offs and nerve-racking episodes with the neighborhood bully. We even managed to steer a fairly civilized carpool. But things changed when our little boy began slouching toward adolescence. We needed more help from the experts.
Just in time, Doug found a copy of Anthony Wolf’s aptly titled guide, Get Out of My Life, but First Could You Drive Me and Cheryl to the Mall? (Noonday Press). As the author notes, today’s youth “are vastly different” from kids forty years ago. Just for starters, their social and academic pressures are more complicated, more intense.
“Teenagers treat adults in their lives in a manner that is less automatically obedient, much more fearless, and definitely more outspoken than that of previous generations,” writes Wolf, who happens to be a parent as well as a clinical psychologist. Many adolescents, he says, feel trapped between the growing need for independence and the secret wish to cling to childhood – an agonizing conflict if ever there was one.
“The two main forces of adolescence are the onset of sexuality and the mandate that demands that teenagers turn away from childhood and parents,” Wolf writes. Not only do teenagers see their parents as grossly flawed, he adds, “they also find them outright embarrassing, especially if seen with them anywhere outside the home.”
This explains why your teenager will hug you in the kitchen when nobody is looking but never, ever, in the school parking lot. Or why he ridicules your impeccable fashion sense and mostly wishes you were invisible.
Let me assure you that this too shall pass. Even the mouthiest teens can grow up to be agreeable, well-adjusted human beings. In the meantime they need our patience, love, and a healthy dose of discipline. But patience can be the hardest part, especially for barbarians. – Cindy La Ferle
A slightly different version of this essay is reprinted in Writing Home.
Cindy on October 14th, 2009
You can never go home again, but the truth is you can never leave home, so it’s all right. ~Maya Angelou
When my son Nate first left home for college, I felt strangely out of place in my cleaner, quieter house. I wasn’t ready to call myself “an empty nester,” and my early coping strategy included listing all of his holiday breaks on our kitchen calendar. I looked forward to being Mom again — if only for a few days.
Two weeks before Nate returned home for fall break of his freshman year, I channeled June Cleaver and planned a few family meals. I stocked up on Nate’s favorite snacks. I reorganized my deadlines, freeing extra time to take him out for lunch. I retrieved the Halloween decorations earlier than usual, stringing rows of miniature pumpkin lights and autumn leaves across the mantel in our living room. My husband repaired the plaster damage from a roof leak in Nate’s bedroom, and then repainted it.
As soon as Nate walked in the side door, the epiphany struck: What the kid really needed was a low-key week. Stressed-out from exams, our son wasn’t expecting a Martha Stewart fanfare or nostalgic pot roast dinners. He’d been looking forward to sleeping in and simply hanging out with family and friends. He wanted home — in all it’s normal, chaotic splendor. In my efforts to turn his visit into a special event, I’d forgotten that Nate didn’t want to feel like a guest in his own house.
Realizing my error, I backed off and let the week unfurl without a plan.
In retrospect, the high points of that visit were the times we ran errands together. Driving to the dry cleaner, the grocery, and the drugstore, Nate and I chatted about his new classes, his friends in the dorm, and which Guster CD was the best. College had turned my snarky teenager into a thoughtful young man, and I found myself enjoying his company. At last, I felt ready to move on and enjoy this new phase of motherhood.
More than wrinkles and gray hair, our kids never fail to remind us of our own aging. Overnight, they morph from preschoolers in OshKosh overalls to college students in size 12 running shoes. Along with applauding their first steps toward independence, letting go requires that we come to terms with the fact that time won’t stand still for any of us. It’s a sobering thought — and ever more poignant when autumn rolls around.
Last week, I watched the neighborhood teens pose for homecoming photographs in their formalwear. Giddy with anticipation, the girls could barely stand still while a group of proud parents focused their cameras. The boys struggled to look comfortable in freshly pressed suits, not-so-secretly hoping that the photo opportunity would end quickly. Their youthful beauty took my breath away, and my heart ached a little.
It occurred to me then that my days of snapping photos of prom gowns and homecoming suits were over. And I wondered: Had I fully experienced those moments as they unfolded, or had I merely captured them in my camera lens to savor later? How often had I darted mindlessly from one major event or field trip to the next? In my efforts to make things memorable and special, what else had I overlooked? It finally hit me, as Carly Simon sang, that all we really own is the present moment; that these are the good old days.
It’s a worthy thought to ponder before the onset of the winter holidays — before we get tangled up in Christmas lists and decorating marathons and long lines at the malls.
In anticipation of Thanksgiving, I’m composing a little prayer of gratitude for the mundane and the uneventful. I’m counting my commonplace blessings: the bowl of McIntosh apples on the kitchen counter; the mischievous cat chasing the pens on my desk; a lazy morning with the Sunday paper; a hearty bean soup simmering in the slow cooker. This season I’ll practice coming home to the present, to the grace of ordinary days opening one at a time, like the paper windows on my Advent calendar. — Cindy La Ferle
Note: This essay was published earlier this year (“A New Season of Parenting”) in Metro Parent magazine. It was written especially for friends whose children will be starting college this fall…
