My youngest son is going off to college in September. It happened too quickly. I just gave birth. 18 years ago. With kids 16 months apart, there is no breathing room. One minute my daughter is looking at schools, and the next, my son is moving into his dorm.
I am already anticipating the approaching sadness, but I am not alone. I follow every sappy social media group, from Grown and Flown to Empty Nest Depressed Moms. That last name is made-up, but if you are not ready to kill yourself before reading these articles, you will definitely start looking for the expired 18-year-old c-section pain pills to overdose on when finished.
Not one of these suffering mothers mourning a goodbye that hasnt happened yet, realizes how much they are glorifying the past. Raising kids is not always a slice of heaven. It’s hell at times. Our brain lies to us. Just like social media, it creates embellished Facebook posts in our heads. No different from some prettied-up pictures and trying to convince our closest nine thousand friends that life is perfect, our brain is trying to convince us that our past was perfect and life will never be as good without the kids at home.
Instagram has nothing on me. The persuasion powers of my brain will give any social media influencer a run for their money.
The brain has a few nifty tricks. It tries to remember only the good. When pregnant, I remember some idiot told me that if I could remember the pain of labor, I would only have one kid. Irrelevant to me having two C-sections but backs up this theory of selectively remembering.
Let’s start with the boxes of pictures in my basement, filling a space that could fit a small car. When I get too caught up in the present, I brave mold and spiderwebs and head downstairs to memory lane.
When I look at a picture of my tow-headed two-year-old son smiling at me or, even worse, one of him hugging me, my stomach drops to my toes. I feel the tears pooling up behind my eyes. It’s so easy to let the moment take you and ruminate over how wonderful life was when Jake and Becky were small. And it so was, but not every minute.
Life is great with toddlers, but it’s bone tiring, hard as hell, and at times boring. I raised my babies before smartphones. With everything at our fingertips, boredom is non-existent anymore. Fifteen years ago, at a playground, not so much. Nothing more tedious than pushing a swing. Playgrounds are open bug-filled heat magnets, and pushing a swing is hard work. Mothers of high school seniors may be writing me death threats and wishing they could return to that moment. It wasn’t fun.
Our memories are loaded with painstakingly planned birthday parties. They were mainly wonderful, but now let’s talk about Chuck E Cheese. Why more children are not lost or stolen from there is beyond me. A sweated-off arm stamp was just another way mothers that need a few minutes away from their kids could have a chat with another adult anxiety free. Horrible pizza, a scary mascot, that at one point was a rat, and an off-the-chart decibel level of screaming kids does not a fun time make.
Another not-so-fun time was at the town swimming pool. Fighting for a seat on a hard bench with wet kids is painful. No adult with any sense of hygiene would attempt to go in the overcapacity-filled kid-fest pool. Although the adult swim kept out the kids, it did not keep out whatever bodily function the kids left in it.
The next parenting obstacle was the public fighting. One boy and one girl 15 months apart are a 24/7 streaming Ultimate Fight Club. It didn’t matter where we were, on an airplane, a shopping mall, or once in a casino, they fought. I was a referee during my kids’ childhood years and not a very good one. When they fought at home, they knew I was not to be disturbed unless there was blood. Out in public, it was a different animal. I just became a raving, screaming lunatic.
My kids never held my hand after the age of Five.
It amazes me when I see a parent walking through a parking lot holding on to a happy kid in each hand. If anyone has video of me taking my kids into a store, they would see a red-faced woman squeezing the hands of two squirming kids screaming, “Let Go, you are hurting me!” The minute I let go, they would be dead, as they would have run right into the first car whizzing by.
The grocery store was a nightmare. By the time I admitted defeat and stopped bringing the kids, I had worked out a system. Lying was key. I told the kids that those car-shaped carts, filled with two kids and one loaf of bread could not be pushed by any mortal human, were broken. Then I would grab the most unhealthy, normally off-limit snack and toss it in their laps. Then making sure my cart stayed in the exact middle of all aisles out of arms reach, I would rush through my list and hopefully get out of there without any meltdowns. There is no mother alive who minds crying kids in checkout lines. We have all been there.
It gets worse when they are teens, as you can read here.
But alas, with all my not-so-perfect memories, I am still spending way too much time crying over days gone by.
I do long for the past. However, I can’t read any more articles with a weepy mother reminiscing about her kids sitting on a blanket on a summer day reading library books for hours. C’mon, we all know that no siblings would continue to remain on one blanket together without bloodshed or tears for more than 3 minutes. Reading a book? Not my fist-bearing illiterates.
Our main job as parents is to give our kids Roots and Wings. We do a fantastic job giving them roots. Today’s family units revolve around the kids. My friends are the parents of my kids’ friends. My parents had friends that I didn’t know if they even had kids.
We give our kids a sense of belonging, provide them with community, and give them love. But we tend to gloss over the wing part because it’s too darn painful to let go.
Let go we must and be so incredibly grateful that we have each new day and new experience with our kids. Today and tomorrow are all that matter. I am proud that I did my job. They are off to discover a world without us but because of us.
And they will be back.
Feet, what do I need you for when I have wings to fly?
Frida Kahlo
