My Life as a Parent: Milestones, New Chapters, and the Status Quo

Our fam­ily has been through some major tran­si­tions over the course of the past year, and the evening of June 3, 2010, not only felt like the cul­mi­na­tion of all the changes we have expe­ri­enced recently, it also marked the end of one long chap­ter of my life. It was excit­ing, ful­fill­ing, sat­is­fy­ing … and both men­tally and phys­i­cally exhausting.

We don’t always know, at a pre­cise moment in time, that we are expe­ri­enc­ing the end of an era, a jour­ney, an ongo­ing event, a rela­tion­ship. Some­times we don’t under­stand until later that a finite point in time was indeed that moment of final­ity. In other cases, the full weight of reach­ing the end of some­thing bears down on us as the moment approaches and for a period of time after­ward. In those cir­cum­stances, we have the oppor­tu­nity to antic­i­pate and pre­pare for that life-altering moment, but we can’t always pre­dict how we will feel once it arrives.

So it was with my youngest son’s recent grad­u­a­tion from high school.

My boys at Christ­mas­time, 1991. Robert was 4 1/2 years; Matthew was just one month old.

Obvi­ously, like any proud par­ent, I looked for­ward to the evening when I would watch him march in with his class to the strains of “Pomp and Cir­cum­stance” wear­ing his silly-looking mor­tar­board and robe, and col­lect his hard-earned diploma. That small piece of paper sym­bol­izes the cul­mi­na­tion of twelve years (not count­ing preschool and kinder­garten) of drag­ging his sleepy butt out of bed, get­ting him dressed, mak­ing sure his back­pack held every­thing he needed for the day, and dri­ving him to school on time (hope­fully) before head­ing off to work. Along the way, there were also many days when I had to arrange for some­one else to per­form those parental respon­si­bil­i­ties for me while I was out of town on busi­ness trips. When he was in ele­men­tary school, my mother was still alive and able to drive to his school. There were days when his father worked over­time, so he was excited about rid­ing in Nana’s car to her house. Later, when she could no longer drive, he became well-known to the local dis­patcher who took my calls for appoint­ments with our local Dial-A-Ride ser­vice. She would say, “Oh, Matthew’s going to Grandma’s today!” with­out ask­ing for the address. After my mother began resid­ing in an assisted liv­ing facil­ity and we moved into the house my par­ents built in 1959, that dis­patcher con­grat­u­lated and com­mended us for keep­ing the home in the fam­ily — and assured me that Matthew would be picked up and deliv­ered to our new home safely.

Of course, along the way, there were count­less hours of home­work, includ­ing all those spe­cial projects that sent me scur­ry­ing for clothes­pins, yarn, Sharpie pens, glue, uncooked pasta, bub­ble wrap, bits of cloth or felt, shoe or cereal boxes, bub­ble wrap … even eggs for the annual eggstrav­a­ganza I dreaded most of all, the egg drop! Yes, both of my boys had to endeavor to clev­erly con­ceal a raw egg in some sort of pack­ag­ing that would cush­ion it against being dropped from the roof of the school­house! Nei­ther of them ever won that con­test. And in Matthew’s case, I do mean scurry because for twelve years, he was the kid who never brought home the weekly newslet­ter or the daily bul­letin. I wish I could count the num­ber of times he announced, just as I was com­ing through the door after a long, stress­ful day at work, “Mom, my ________ is due tomor­row! Do we have any ______?” Since he usu­ally needed some­thing we did not have stocked at home, his father was dis­patched on emer­gency trips to the store, while I stayed behind to brain­storm with Matthew about the assign­ment. Plenty of times I enlisted the assis­tance of his older brother who, for­tu­nately, had com­pleted the same assign­ment a few years ear­lier and could pro­vide valu­able advice.

I remem­bered and, for the most part, laughed about those times in the weeks and days lead­ing up to Matthew’s big night. Of course, there were also a few lumps in my throat as I recalled some of the more trau­matic and poignant times. In par­tic­u­lar, I thought about how upset my mother was when she arrived at his school to attend his kinder­garten grad­u­a­tion cer­e­mony. Still en route, I answered my cell phone and heard, “Mat­tieBoo is so upset. Are you on your way?” He was sit­ting qui­etly off to the side, away from the other chil­dren, cry­ing. After some prob­ing by Nana, he finally told her that he wished he were dead! By the time I arrived, my mother, being the expert mater­nal detec­tive that she was, had dis­cerned that poor lit­tle Mat­tieBoo did not know he would see his kinder­garten teacher after that day. He thought grad­u­a­tion meant that he would be for­ever sep­a­rated from her! I knew that he loved Sue Hum­mel — as did most every child who was ever lucky enough to be her stu­dent — but the level of attach­ment he had formed to her and its impact on him was a com­plete shock. How could I have guessed that he did not know his first grade class­room was right around the cor­ner from Mrs. Hummel’s room and, as a first grader, he would be able to visit as often as he wanted? After Nana and Mrs. Hum­mel assured him that she would see him every day next year on the play­ground, he calmed down and hap­pily accepted his kinder­garten diploma as my mother and I, both cry­ing from a mix­ture of relief and pride, looked on.

My boys on June 3, 2010, the evening Matthew grad­u­ated from high school. He is 18, and Robert is now 23.

It was a sim­i­lar mix­ture of relief and pride that washed over me the evening of June 3, as that lit­tle boy — now 6′ 3″ tall with a very deep voice, broad shoul­ders, and a dis­play of poise and humil­ity that sur­prised and hum­bled me — gave his vale­dic­tory speech and col­lected his high school diploma with his father, older brother, friends, and a few other fam­ily mem­bers in atten­dance. And as I sat in the front row lis­ten­ing to him speak, I was acutely aware that I was expe­ri­enc­ing the end not just of his high school years, but the most mon­u­men­tal chap­ter of my life so far.

I thought the “worst” was over. After all, Matthew cel­e­brated his 18th birth­day last Novem­ber. I felt a lit­tle lost that day, because I real­ized that I was no longer the mother of any minor chil­dren. Although I joked about it with my friends, it was a bit of a jolt. And just a cou­ple of weeks later, the full force of that knowl­edge came into play when Matthew pre­sented me with a field trip per­mis­sion slip. I looked at the sig­na­ture line and real­ized that it no longer held any rel­e­vance for me. “Matthew, you don’t need my sig­na­ture on this form,” I told him. “Mom, they said we have to turn the per­mis­sion slips in tomor­row or we can’t go on the trip,” he replied absent­mind­edly while for­ag­ing in the refrig­er­a­tor. (Some things never change, no mat­ter how old they get.) “How old are you now?” I reminded him. Sud­denly, he got it! “Oh, yeah! I’m an adult now! I don’t need your per­mis­sion! Oh, cool!” he exclaimed, snatch­ing the form away from me. Selec­tive Ser­vice and voter reg­is­tra­tion forms arriv­ing in the mail rein­forced the point.

But there was some­thing about reach­ing the last and most impor­tant mile­stone — high school grad­u­a­tion — that really caused me to pon­der its sig­nif­i­cance for my own life. Not only am I the mother of two adults, I have now ful­filled my parental respon­si­bil­i­ties! As I remind them (light-heartedly, of course) when they argue or fail to per­form a house­hold chore when requested to do so, “Hey, I am no longer oblig­ated to feed you, so if you enjoy liv­ing here, get with the pro­gram! Oth­er­wise, tell me where to for­ward your mail.” There is a sense of achieve­ment asso­ci­ated with hav­ing suc­cess­fully raised two boys, both of whom grad­u­ated from high school with hon­ors, and are law-abiding cit­i­zens. Matthew was inter­viewed by the local news­pa­per about how it felt to be the vale­dic­to­rian of his class. He said, “I feel really accom­plished.” I con­fess that I couldn’t help feel­ing “really accom­plished” myself when I read the arti­cle, which con­cluded as fol­lows: “When asked who he would thank above all oth­ers for help­ing him become suc­cess­ful, the school’s top stu­dent said ‘def­i­nitely’ his mother. ‘She gave me a kick in the pants when I needed it and made sure I didn’t goof around,’ he said.”

Unlike some women who reach this junc­ture in their lives, I do not need to ask myself how I am going to fill the hours freed up by less­ened parental respon­si­bil­i­ties. I have so many inter­ests and hob­bies, includ­ing a renewed ded­i­ca­tion to my flute stud­ies, that I never worry about being busy enough. How­ever, I have done some mourn­ing for the lit­tle boys my sons once were — and will never be again — and the fact that they will never need me in the same way that they once did. I’m sure that melan­cho­lia rolls over every par­ent from time to time as they, and their chil­dren, get older. The hap­pi­est moment of my day used to be when I would sneak into the preschool or house and watch them play­ing hap­pily, com­pletely unaware that I had arrived. Look­ing up and see­ing me, they would yell, “Mama’s here!” Toys and friends were instantly for­got­ten as they ran to me, want­ing to be picked up and hugged! Matthew, in par­tic­u­lar, had a habit of smooching my whole face as he grabbed it with his adorable, but very dirty, lit­tle fin­gers. I would love to have some of that dirt on my cheeks again. But I will set­tle for the bear hugs that remind me of just how much time has passed when I find my nose smashed into his shoul­der as he tow­ers over me!

There was lit­tle time to feel maudlin or wal­low in sen­ti­men­tal­ity, how­ever. After all, the new chap­ter of Matthew’s life as an adult — and mine, as the uncon­di­tion­ally sup­port­ive (finan­cially and in all other ways) par­ent — began on June 7, just four days after grad­u­a­tion. That morn­ing, he stepped onto the cam­pus of the com­mu­nity col­lege from which his older brother and I both grad­u­ated to attend the first ses­sion of his first-ever col­lege course, Polit­i­cal Sci­ence. And that evening, I took him to pur­chase sup­plies. As he pre­pared his back­pack for the next morn­ing, I asked him if he had his text­book, binder, pen­cils, etc. Finally, he looked at me exas­per­at­edly, and a blurted out, “Mom, stop! I’m not a baby! I’m grown up! I’m in col­lege!” The rebuke stung for a moment. But then I real­ized that he was right. So I qui­etly went into the other room and left him to fig­ure out for him­self whether he was pre­pared for his sec­ond day as a col­lege fresh­man, mut­ter­ing to his brother, who over­heard and was laugh­ing, “Well, that didn’t take long. He’s only been in col­lege less than twelve hours.” But his remarks typ­ify the spirit of inde­pen­dence I worked to instill in him and will serve him well over the course of the next four years as he works toward the next mile­stone, another grad­u­a­tion. Another oppor­tu­nity for his mother to feel proud, hum­bled, and at a cross­roads of my own.

But in the mean­time, he still asks the same ques­tion he has been ask­ing since he learned to speak. “Mom, what’s for din­ner?” So, in many ways, the old cliches are true. You never stop being a par­ent — and a mother’s work is never really done.

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