Esteemed colleagues, visiting dignitaries, and families: Today
is my day to walk the stage.
Our youngest graduated from high school in June, and today –
the day after we’ve dropped her off at college – it’s my turn to don the cap
and gown. To turn my tassel in honor of all the enduring and all the endearing moments
we’ve shared throughout these two decades of living and learning together as a
family.
While there have certainly been some aspects of this mothering
thing that make me feel like throwing my cap into the air in celebration, most
of me wants to drag it out and become a super senior.
A super, duper senior.
To the uninitiated, I know it can’t possibly make sense that
anyone would want to draw out a job that feels like the mother of all catch and
release programs. After all, we parents act like it’s reasonable to catch and
coddle and keep them alive as newborn babies, love the living heck out of them
(even when they become know-it-all preteens), correct their behavior, forgive,
forget and love again anyway, and then release them into the wild as freshly
minted adults to go forth and continue the cycle on their own.
From beginning to end and all through the middle, the
challenges in raising them are sometimes little and sometimes big, often frequent,
and always heart wrenching.
And the compensation to us parents for staying on the job? You
guessed it—It’s sometimes little and sometimes big, never frequent enough, and
always heart swelling.
In the earliest of my 20 years on the job, we endured big
challenges like ventilation tents courtesy of croup, ear tubes, re-implanted
ureters, broken bones, and pre-mature nap surrendering that brought on the kind
of tantrums that made us wonder if an exorcism was still an actual thing.
The little struggles, which only feel little after a decade
or so of distance from them, were fights over who got to be the pink one,
non-conformist circle time at preschool that raised the
are-we-raising-a-sociopath flag, and a slip and fall into another child’s
puddle of vomit that stopped just short of requiring sedation for mother and
daughter alike.
There were sad days when one of our girls was targeted by
the mean girls, and sadder days when we had to accept that ours was the mean girl de jour.
In middle school, there was experimentation that tried to
stay underground but couldn’t because Mama has a certain set of skills that are
admittedly more Nancy Drew than Liam Neeson, but managed to do the job. The crippling
worry that came along with my discoveries carried the added bonus of
embarrassment, since I led the parent group tasked with building developmental
assets in youth to help them stay away from high-risk behavior and didn’t
manage to see the signs in my own child.
This is when strange coping thoughts started entering my
mind, like: “If irony had a flavor, I wonder if it would taste like bile?”
There were wars to wage, too, like the one against the PE
teacher who humiliated kids and nicknamed our daughter “Shelby” as a code name
for Chubby.
Then, there was high school. Even though the turmoil in our
house quieted significantly by sophomore year, the topics of cyber-bullying,
slut shaming, sexting, dating, and partying swirled like funnel clouds around the
school. And occasionally touched land at home.
All of this plus the insane level of academic pressure on
this generation that we parents never experienced at that age. At the tender age
of 14, they get this message: “If you want to go to a good college, be a school
leader, volunteer 100 hours per year, win awards in sports or master an
instrument. But don’t forget to be a 4.0 scholar with AP classes.” All the
striving and nerves over measuring up make this a category five, duck-and-cover
phase of parenting.
Now, BAM, mine are gone and I sit in the quiet after the storm in a cloud of mixed
emotions— shell-shocked that all of this has happened, nostalgic for the times
when I was their everything, a tiny bit relieved to focus on myself, and
concerned that I will never feel so important to another cause again.
Each of the challenges in mothering brought feelings that
ranged from angst to outright suffering. Depending on the event and the
emotions that came with it, I’ve been brought to my knees sobbing with worry, and
invented streams of profanity that would’ve made George Carlin proud. I’ve
sought solace in counseling and Chardonnay. I’ve strengthened the sense of
partnership in my marriage, confided in friends who comfort and validate me, and
I’ve whispered to God.
That said, I cannot imagine a richer ride. To have sacrificed
myself so much for my children’s wellbeing brings a depth to me that I couldn’t
have gotten in any other way.
I have been humbled, scared, honored, and blessed during
these two decades of helping them learn to…
vRise healthy
from each of their medical maladies;
vFace setbacks
and losses without tantrums (or holy water);
vEmbrace colors
other than pink and, more importantly, no longer care what their sister is
wearing;
vChoose when it’s
best to conform to the grownup version of circle time and when it’s okay to
fight the system, even if it leaves a few people wondering if they are
sociopaths;
vAnticipate and
prevent the figurative and physical slipping in vomit puddles;
vKnow in their
hearts that mean girls target people because of feelings of unworthiness inside
themselves, not because of anything their victims have done to “deserve” their
wrath;
vKeep
experimenting because that’s how they figure out who they are and who they are
not (while realizing that it’s probably best to keep the exploits from their
retired sleuth of a mom);
vOpt out of
activities and people that seem cool but are actually hazardous to their
wellbeing;
vAnd make peace
with the options they have in front of them and just keep moving forward.
It is that last lesson that I must now re-learn for myself
as I walk the stage and shake hands with my next chapter today.
I toss my cap – not out of a rejoicing spirit over leaving
the day-to-day mothering years behind – but out of determination to make sure
that the emptying nest is replaced with new and rewarding experiences.
To my fellow classmates of the Motherhood Class of 2015, I
raise my glass to our shared accomplishment and our new opportunities to grow!
