Mother's Day kick to the heart.

[rivka]

Alex brought home a card she'd made at school. Her handprint is on the front in fuchsia paint.

"Mom," she said earnestly, "our hands are on there so you'll always remember when we were three or four, how cute we were."

Obviously that came from a teacher explaining the craft at school. But then Alex took it a step further. She ducked under my arm and gazed up into my face.

"Mom, when I'm a really really big grownup and you don't ever see me again, you'll always remember how cute I was."

"You don't think you'll visit me when you're a grownup?"

"Maybe not."

Every snarling, angry teenager screaming obscenities at her mother was once a three- or four-year-old presenting a handmade Mother's Day card. Every adult distant and alienated from his parents was once a cute, loving preschooler.

If you read things written by parents who don't have good relationships with their teenage or adult children, there's always an overpowering sense of bewilderment. How did the sweet, trusting little kid grow into the angry, resentful adult? Before, reading, I always thought that there must be something they'd done wrong and weren't mentioning. But now I think that a lot of the time parents just don't know. They think they're doing well enough. Not perfect, right, but adequate.

I called Alex in to me just now. "Honey, even when you're a really big grownup, I hope you'll always want to see me and be with me sometimes."

"Mmm," she said sympathetically. She let me hug her. Then she twirled away from me to tell Michael something about a plastic egg she'd filled with coins.

Comments

[ratphooey.livejournal.com]

See, that stuff doesn't bother me.

Because my son also insists he's going to grow up to be 8 feet tall.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

But then don't you worry that if he's estranged from you you'll miss out on all his fabulous income as a professional basketball player?

[ratphooey.livejournal.com]

He'd be shamed by his teammates into at least buying me a house. :-)

[papersky.livejournal.com]

I think the thing with teenage grumpyness it to keep remembering that there will be an other side, and on the other side there will be (you hope) an adult friendship.

It's very weird having kids though, because it is a relationship of growing away, and practically all other relationships are failures if they do that, but for childrearing the victory condition is they grow away and you see them occasionally.

[chargirlgenius.livejournal.com]

When I think of snarling, angry teenager I don't get so wrung out. But when I hear stories of people who have, as adults, cut ties to their parents, or are all but estranged by them, it breaks my heart to think about. I look at the boys and can't imagine them ever being anything but close.

But even thinking about that, I still can't bring myself to be actually *close* to my mother. It's just too hard, and for that, sometimes I just want to kick myself.

[johnpalmer.livejournal.com]

If you read things written by parents who don't have good relationships with their teenage or adult children, there's always an overpowering sense of bewilderment. How did the sweet, trusting little kid grow into the angry, resentful adult? Before, reading, I always thought that there must be something they'd done wrong and weren't mentioning. But now I think that a lot of the time parents just don't know. They think they're doing well enough. Not perfect, right, but adequate.

Yes, but they also don't have the tools to know, to understand. Things go wrong, they don't realize they're going wrong, and don't have any idea how to work on them.

You do have those tools. You will know how to work with them.

[klwalton.livejournal.com]

This is the bit they don't tell you about. The bit where you realize you really have little control. To build on what someone else said upthread, childrearing is teaching your children how to do without you.

From where I sit, on the *other* side of the snarling teenagers (and they were), I'm happy to report that we managed to get through that time undamaged, and that my children do see me occasionally. And voluntarily :).

[ex-serenejo.livejournal.com]

I have a teenager who, when she was three, told me that when she was 16, she would be old and wouldn't need me any more. She's 17, and tells me often how much she loves and needs me. I'm the steady love force in her life, and she knows it. You're the steady love force in Alex's life, and she knows it.

Happy Mother's Day!

[wcg.livejournal.com]

I would bet long odds you and she will be close when she's grown up.

[ailbhe]

When I was little, my mother said "What will you do if you wear me out? I'm the only Mammy you've got!"

I said, "I got sisters."

Linnea says that she will move out and live somewhere else when she grows up, but probably in the same town, and see us sometimes. After she marries Louis and the set off on their career of inventing and childrearing together. (She really needs to tell Louis about this plan).

[patgreene.livejournal.com]

My youngest tells me he's going to put me in a cut-rate nursing home when I get old, whenever I do anything he doesn't like. He also tells me he loves me, so I'm not too worried.

I got lucky with his older brother, and his snarly angry teenager phase was pretty short. He's leaving home in a few months, and I am grieving -- I will miss him terribly.

As a mother, you do the best you can. You enforce boundaries, you teach them, and you let them know that they are loved. That's about the nest you can do.

Happy Mother's Day!