Listening to the three of them talk at dinner about their kids it hits me hard that there is a generation between us. These ladies I work with are smart, ambitious women squarely in the driver’s seat of their careers while raising young children. And I mean really young children. Children as young as my grandchildren. It makes a girl feel old and wise all at the same time.
While these women lead teams of people and make big decisions at
work, its apparent from the dialogue that they don’t know
what to do with their mothers. This
makes me want to listen extra hard. They talk about choosing names for their babies,
and the criticism they received or anticipated they would need to live with,
why they stayed away from some names they liked, how they settled for second
choices, and the fallout from what they ultimately selected.
They share with each other the “advice” they are
receiving as they go about the daily business of caring for young lives. The
ones who have long distance mothers who stay at their homes for weeks or months
at a time are hit particularly hard, exposed to more judgement as there is no
hiding what really goes on when you’re all
behind the same closed doors.
They don’t fault their mothers per se for
having opinions or suggesting things be done a different way, but they are
clearly exhausted from managing not-so-silent partnerships they never intended
to enter into.
There are so many stories I could tell them. They are so early
into their parenting journeys, at the stage where the primary energy exerted as
a parent is the physical care taking. This is Day One in a cross-country car
trip. Everyone is shiny and clean, excited for the adventure ahead. Just wait,
I think, until the switch flips. When the
natives become restless for more than what the inside of the SUV can offer, when
the kids do things for themselves, choose friends without parental approval. When so much of their lives are lived outside
of the car, that’s when the really hard, emotional
work of being a mother starts, and if I’m being honest, never ends.
Instead, I tell them my philosophy. As the grandmother, I’m not driving,
riding shotgun, nor relegated to the back seat.
I’m not even
in the vehicle. I’m at a rest stop, the place where
everyone gets out to stretch their legs and have some fun before getting back
in the car and heading to the next place. I don’t read the
map. I might provide some gas money here and there, get asked for directions occasionally
or be consulted on a route. But mostly I come with snacks and a grateful heart.
I feel lucky to be here. My own mother didn’t get the
gift of being in this world with my kids during the bulk of the childrearing
years.
I taught my kids how to read the map and how to drive. I
strived to raise self-sufficient and resourceful individuals who seek out help
when they are faced with decisions they feel they cannot make on their own. There
were hard lessons in this approach, and we had some serious crashes along the
way. I questioned my own sanity when I let the rope out a little too far and
found myself reeling back in a bedraggled, hurt and angry soul. I recognize I
may not always be the lifeline they call, but it doesn’t matter so
much who they call, it matters that they know the importance of having people
to call and the courage to pick up the phone.
What these ladies don’t realize
yet is that in order to be the best mothers they can be, they need to set
boundaries with their own mothers. It’s hard to
explain to someone who loves you so fiercely that while she may have the
perfect, safe and proven route mapped out for you, what you really want is to
make your own. And it’s hard as
the mother of a mother (or a father) to accept that the map your grown child follows
may look nothing like the map you’ve been charting for them since before they were born.
The ladies say they admire me for being able to bite my tongue,
but I don’t consider
this to be the case at all. I’m not trying to get in the car. It was never going to be mine to drive.
