Another Birthday, Another Millstone

 [Note:  this post is being written late and is subject to revision when I am coherent again…] 

Here are three best friends at a birthday party.  They were pretty excited and happy, having just come from a movie and anticipating a pizza supper with cake for dessert.  I did have to remind them a couple times to settle down, but they did, and weren’t overly rambunctious or loud (though they could have been if encouraged).

Soon after the supper was over, we took them to a park where they played frisbee with dads and brothers…

And another, an action shot…

It was fun.

Today I am a quarter inch shorter than I was three weeks ago…   or the child is taller.

Today I am another year older, and the child is growing into his own.

We are not in a hurry to push him out of the nest, rather he is moving toward the rim on his own.

Here he is, in the morning, wearing the robe I made him (yes!  I finished it!), inspecting the starter telescope we got him with his daddy.  You see he is easily as tall as his taller parent…

Though I love watching my children learn and grow, come into their own as people, it makes me wistful on occasion for the early years.  Can it really be that so much time has passed?  Are we really this close to “empty nesting” — to being excused from the daily reminders to brush teeth or hair, released from the duties of chauffering, dismissed from their lives?

If I am lucky, when my children are past their teen years, when they have survived their first tentative steps into adulthood, they will rejoin my life — as comfortable, interesting friends.

But right now, we are renegotiating our roles.  Some things I am still very much in charge, some things I am not.  Some things I remain the expert, but in many areas my child(ren) have surpassed me in both interest and knowledge.  It is curious how many ways they exhibit individuality despite their similar upbringings, the many subjects their father or I have studied and enjoyed.

The millstone?  As they approach the point at which they will enter the world on their own terms, I find myself worrying more and more about the state of the world, whether we will have the resources they need to gain a foothold in the lives they wish to lead.

This is the real burden of parenting, I think.  Not the long nights spent sitting up with a sick child, or the days traveling back and forth to doctors/schools/events, nor even the long, intense discussions on birds and bees and other hot topics.

No, the real burden of parenting is learning to let go, remembering my own struggle to find my place in the world, to learn to be a productive adult.  Though my parents were eventually in a position to help me/us along, there were many places I had to go alone, many financial and educational choices I had to make sola.

I made it — my task soon will be to let go, so my own children can make it.   So they can feel the same sense of accomplishment I did.  The same sense they felt the first day they woke up before me and dressed themselves, saying proudly:

Me did it meself!