Pondering the challenges of parenting now they are adults!

I have three children but they are not really children anymore being 31, 23 and 20! It’s difficult not to see them as the little people I brought into the world, nurtured to the best of my ability, which on good days was fabulous and bad days was rubbish. I have some amazing and wonderful memories and some memories of the times where everything seemed out of control and being a mother didn’t seem to be within my skill set.

Now they are adults. Fully grown and mostly independent and I’m still their mum.

I still worry about them, sometimes a lot, which depends on whether I know what they’re doing or where they are in the world. I joke about burning passports so at least they can’t leave the country and I could get to them in an emergency! I need to remember though that when you’re an adult in an emergency you call your friends first.  You don’t want to worry your parents, so I wouldn’t get the call anyway and they’d probably/might/never tell me until the emergency is over. I think parents get the call for good news and only in an emergency when only a parent would be helpful or it’s a total disaster and they’d find out anyway.

I think the hardest part as the years pass is the reduction in the control; over their decisions, their issues, their way forward, where they go, who their friends are and letting them learn from their own mistakes and one of the biggest is not interrogating them. I feel I’ve asked the question:”how was your day?” since the first day of nursery when I didn’t know exactly what they done all day. Or been able to control it all!

My children’s lives continue and grow and develop and their relationship with me goes from total dependence to independence based on the decisions they make with limited input from me .....and it’s hard/weird/releasing/confusing and at times fabulous that I'm not longer responsible! My love for them stays the same notwithstanding they don’t need me the same. Maybe because we carry them in pregnancy and help them grow into humans it’s difficult when they don’t need us to help them grow anymore.

A few things to remember:-

How much advice or guidance I wanted from a parent once I was an adult. Pretty much none!

Their age and that they are grown adults. Sometimes they want to be their age and be treated that age and sometimes want to be home to be looked after as the adult world doesn’t play nicely all the time. 

Their name; most of the time.

They have their friends who you might not know and who they will go to first for advice and help. 

Their birthdays will be days full of memories of the birth-day, the parties, the chaos, the excitement, the cakes, the presents and now accepting their friends or partners will be making the birthday plans and I might not see or hear from them.

And when it feels too weird remembering their first home was never bricks and mortar and will be where I am and to try to make it a comfy harbour for them…. without interrogation. Parenting my adults is about trying to remember these things and watering and feeding them when they’re home. Listening and offering help and advice when asked, with the hope they will know it’s true that there is no place like home. 

Image credit Laurie Rubin

The caterpiller

The caterpillar awakes and starts to eat. Pretty much anything tastes good. Eating all the nutrients for growth. Equipped for the journey bright days ahead. Sometimes the munching becomes indiscriminate and the growing becomes distorted and will take some time on good food to become restored.

Then slowly the softness hardens, things that were certain become vague. What was important becomes questionable. What dreams of growth become a realisation that the cost is too high.

Forward momentum slows and the soft easy movements stop.

No movement. Stuck on a thread with one view, vulnerable and alone. The hard crust tightens and the wait and the confusion of the held place starts.

The chrysalis closes over, no light to see or watch the secret place of transformation. It is the most hidden place. It is the end of the caterpillar, death of self, death to the first part of life.

Death with the hope of transformation, but was that just a whisper, folklore, something to give death some meaning? Does the narrow path lead through the darkness to brighter light. Death for life. An end for a beginning, A seed buried in the dark hoping to break through into new life.

But for now the dark. The tomb. The wait.

Everything is stripped; dreams, achievements, failures, significance, reputation, disappointments, expectations, vision, pride, insecurities baggage and status. All that is left in the darkness is hope and the wait..

There is silence and there is activity.

The old is crumbling and disintegrating or if needed it is remodelled to become part of the new.

A slow and painful process of letting go of what has been the norm, the cost and the value. To grieve and release and allow the transformation.

To come out early, by choice or force, would create a metamorphosis with a mixture of old and new. A muddle of a transition neither able to fly freely into new experience of life with wings or eat the green leaves all day in the sunshine. Unable to go backwards because the shape is torn.

To wait in the dark, wait for the full transformation wait and hope.

And then a shard of light. Hope breathes and stretches. There is a push and a wriggle slowly out of confinement. The brightness of the day fills the body and inspires and encourages.

The hard shell falls and with a deep breath of clean fresh air the butterfly fills their lungs and spreads out their wings.

Emerging wings fill with blood and it is time to fly. The beautiful butterfly shows it’s true colours, shining in the sunlight.
Life to embrace and a story to tell of hope holding through the darkness.