Motherhood from the "other side"

A commencement address for parents.

A few weeks ago my daughter, Clara, and I journeyed to Traverse City, Michigan where all of my children gathered in one place for the first time since Christmas.

While Clara still lives at home and Owen is on summer break after his freshman year of college, the older three have adult lives to work around now - so the first few days were a hodgepodge of pickups and meet-ups and drop-offs. But on the last evening, we managed to find a pocket of time where everyone was available, and spent a couple hours in a noisy arcade/pizza joint, just hanging out together.

As always, there were plenty of laughs and reminiscing and sibling in-jokes that I’m already feeling mostly on the outside of. But amid the din, I tried to carve out a quiet few moments to connect with one son at a time, asking them all those stereotypical cringe questions that moms can’t help but ask: are you eating enough? Is there anyone special? How are your classes and work? Any fun plans for summer?

Seriously, though, are you eating enough?

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Every time I talk to my adult children I am struck with a sense of awe: I can’t believe these young men were nourished by my body and carried in my arms, then my little sidekicks and helpers for so long. They’re fully grown men now; some of them so tall I disappear into an armpit if I come in for a side-hug.

The growing up and away happened so fast and furiously that for a while I had a hard time touching them. I occupied space nervously around these alien creatures, on some level, I think, afraid they would slip away from me entirely if I came too near. But we’ve all gotten used to each other again in our current physical states, I think, and now I find myself greedy for touch in their presence, stealing hugs and doling out shoulder rubs each time I get close.

And I’m awed not just by their imposing physical presences, either, but also their maturity, particularly the two who have passed the all-important threshold at which a young male’s brain is said to fully mature (about twenty-five, if you’re curious…or despairing.)

Jacob, who is 27 now, had some serious struggles after high school, but has grown into himself, thriving in his new environment and taking on new challenges left and right (he’s currently in Japan, part of a trip he’s taking with his amazing community college.)

And Isaac, who’s deciding between a couple of exciting opportunities, is about as calm, kind, responsible and loving a twenty-five-year-old as a mother could hope for.

You may recall that this is the kid whose meltdown became a meme.

This photo is from a family wedding in 2003, when Jacob and Isaac were five and three. I was pregnant with Will, and Isaac threw an epic tantrum during the family photo shoot. I posted the picture on my Facebook page in 2013, shut my computer for the night, and woke up to find that it had been shared tens of thousands of times. By later that day, hundreds of thousands. It became a viral meme which still occasionally pops back up. (I wrote about that experience for the Huffington Post in 2013.)

Of course, while that sort of thing was just par for the course for Isaac - who spent much of his first four years of life creating havoc (in between sticky, smooshy hugs and kisses) - I didn’t expect that his usually much-calmer and more compliant older brother Jacob, overwhelmed by all the people and buzz, would also lose it that day.

These were not good times for me, friends. I was financially floundering and personally struggling, trying to figure out my place in life and calm my over-active brain enough to choose a path and stick with it. My third pregnancy was unplanned and ill-timed. Jacob was having a hard time handling his public kindergarten class after transitioning from a Montessori preschool, and Isaac was - well, Isaac. I felt like I wore my failures publicly, that everyone knew and was judging me.

It’s worth noting that I was twenty-six in this photo, exactly in the middle of Jacob’s and Isaac’s ages now.

But things calmed down relatively quickly after this. We homeschooled for a year to give Jacob a chance to regulate. Isaac became calmer as he progressed into elementary school (though he was never great at sitting still for long…and still isn’t.) And Will proved to be an easy baby, making the transition to mothering three kids much smoother than I’d feared. His long naps and regular sleep schedule also made it possible for me to invest time in my writing career, which started to really take off. Owen arrived two years later and Clara three years after that, and our family was fully formed - until it changed through divorce, and again through remarriage.

Things trucked along smoothly for a while, until they didn’t. And then they did, until they didn’t again.

When I look back at the pictures of that wedding, when life was so hard, I’m momentarily relieved to be on the other side of those years. But then I remember that being on “the other side” simply carried me along to other rough patches we’ve been through since, some of which make my former “troubles” as the disorganized mom of a high-spirited three-year-old look like child’s play.

I guess I’m finally experienced enough to know that there isn’t really an “other side”. Instead, rough weather comes and goes. Right now the waters are relatively calm and everyone is chugging along with optimism and peace. And yet things can and do change in a heartbeat.

I hint at some of the ups and downs we’ve gone through in my book, but it’s far from a tell-all memoir about parenting young adults. There’s no specific dirt dished or tea spilled, and that’s very much by design - not only because I respect my adult kids and their stories aren’t mine to tell, but also because knowing the specifics won’t help you as the reader.

If I shared specifics of some of our family’s struggles and it was less severe than your own family’s, you might be tempted to believe that I had it easy and could never understand what you’ve been through. If I shared specifics about our family’s struggles and they were worse than something you’ve been through, you might be tempted to feel fortunate or even a little smug; you’ve dodged a bullet and maybe it’s even due to the job you did as a mom. But either response would be…well, premature. I have no idea what pain of yours I may be able to relate to one day. You have no idea what pain of mine will one day be yours to share.

If I had any piece of advice to offer other parents who are anxious about what the future holds, I’d say this, with tenderness and compassion: life is hard and it will hurt. We can never say what’s on the other side because there is no other side; there is only this tenuous moment and the next.

Here’s the thing that has remained true, throughout time, since the spring twenty-eight years ago when I learned - young, unprepared, and yet strangely elated - that I was going to be a mother: I love my kids fiercely and imperfectly. I’ve showed them that love in the ways I’ve been able and to the degrees I’ve been able - which has often not felt like nearly enough - as my life has ridden its own waves.

Human mothers are not AI, able to crank out cheerful and confident results regardless of the quality of our inputs. We are flawed and fallible and often floundering. But we have something more precious than robot power: a deep love for the people we ushered through childhood, on to whatever is on…well, the other side.

If you’ve been to a lot of high-school graduations, like I have, you start to notice a pattern in the speeches.

First, there’s the look back- the speaker shares some funny reminiscences of the memories the class has created together.

Second, the speaker establishes the setting: the graduates stand on the threshold of a great change, a clear before (you have been a student) and after (but now you are an alumni.)

And third, the speaker presents the challenges and the opportunities of what lies ahead, and asks the class: how will you meet this moment?

If I could write a commencement address for parents, I’d focus on the moment our kids begin pulling away, when we realize that our job is, in many ways, just beginning.

We develop new relationships with them, ones that don’t rely on our physical proximity; we learn to restrain ourselves from jumping in to solve everything while still being available to solve some things (or better yet, to help them figure out the solution on their own).

We work on ourselves - our own responses to things, our own wounds, our own resilience - because at some point we realize this is the work. It’s always been the work, actually, even if we were too busy with the trappings and tasks to tend to it.

We adjust, and adjust, and adjust again,…and along the way begin to learn that the “finish line” we aimed for is a lot less final than we may have thought it would be. There’s no “other side” to reach, just a long journey we take one step at a time.

For those of us struggling to let go, that realization brings with it hope; for those of us who are exhausted, dismay. (Probably for most of us there’s a little of each.)

In my imaginary commencement address for parents, I’d ask us to recognize the gravity of the moment we’re in: to look at where we are, on the threshold of where we’re going, separately and together.

I’d remind us of the challenges we face ahead. Being the parent of adults is always changing and never certain. It’s going to require resilience, flexibility, humility. Sometimes it will hurt. But it’s also a moment of promise and possibility; of the family we are becoming, and the people we are (all of us!) growing into.

And I’d end the address by simply asking us all: how will we meet this moment?

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