askyermom

I didn’t know I was thinking of my kids as peers until I realized I was thinking that way. Thinking about thinking: the most portable hobby.

I certainly noticed that my connection to my kids felt off kilter. My place in their lives was shifting into the suburbs, the way we’re told it is supposed to. Not exile, but also not in the house or even in the yard. I was to be credited as a guest appearance. They are very independent, so hooray?

I’ve watched other moms maintain an iron grip on their grown families, but in a lady like way with a lady like grip. Everyone must do their part to keep the family machine intact, they believe.

The machine isn’t intact, though. The old machine is an illusion we cling to because we don’t want to learn a new machine.

I have been very impatient with the new machine. Why don’t they call more? How am I not invited to all the things? I know I’m delightful company, they all tell me so, so why don’t we gather more often?

These days, we just don’t gather all together unless it’s a special occasion. Hence, the specialness. We rarely gather at my house. Somehow, my house has become the crying shack. This is the place my kids and their friends come to recover from a break up or a health scare or the occasional haunted rental. It’s sort of a three-quarters-way house.

Some people enter my home and spontaneously begin to sob, and then they apologize for sobbing. They don’t yet understand it’s not in their control or mine. It’s the overwhelming safety of the place that somehow whips out a tissue and a warm spot on the sofa, so it makes sense that one may begin crying completely by surprise.

I guess this is close to what I wanted. I love that my home is a safe place, even if it has the energy of a soul hospital. My soul hospital has a distinct lack of peers in it. My pets are also not my peers. They are my rulers.

Maybe I can be forgiven for forgetting that my kids are not my peers. I was treated like a peer way too early and never really got the hang of being a daughter. When I had a partner, it was easier to keep roles clear in the usual us-them, adult-child strata, but now it’s just me and some adults who look and/or sound a bit like me. Evidently, I was expecting to be one of the crew, but I’m stuck in this stupid matriarchal position, sort of perched on the bow with a few tools and no authority.

I want to clown around, but my clowning could land somebody in therapy. My declarations matter and my jokes can scar when I’m joking with my kids. Try one heart attack prank and ruin Thanksgiving sometime and you’ll see what I mean.

There is an easy way to determine if we are dealing with actual peers: can you tell them something supremely embarrassing in few words and get full recognition with no alarm?

My favorite lately is just to lean over and whisper, “Frickin’ whiskers” and see what happens. My peer people laugh with their whole throat. By contrast, my kids stare in horror. I am sometimes their very own horror movie preview, after all: a crone in training reminding everyone how they will get larger, hairier and closer to the ground.

It’s a useful thing to keep in mind. The kids are not your pals, even though you may like them very much. Beyond that, I guess we can make up what we want our relationships to be. I could be bossier, or I could be the mom who sails off to Greece and doesn’t check her messages, or I could be something in between. I should stop expecting them to tell me every hurdle they clear and I definitely should not expect praise for going to the dermatologist. (I did though, with almost no blushing).

All I’m sure of right now is that I don’t want to be anybody’s medical emergency until it’s truly necessary. And when the time comes, I hope to be shockingly whisker free.

Love,
yermom

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