Older Teens/Young Adults – What I’ve Learned From Motherhood

My kids both had birthdays this week. They’re now 19 and 16 years old respectively. The 19-year-old is a commuter student, living at home while attending college. Witnessing my kids enter their young adult years, I find myself thinking a lot about my parenting “career” and how reality has or hasn’t meshed with my expectations.

It seems I know many people with new babies and/or young children right now, too Because life goes on, I suppose. Hearing the conversations and concerns of these newer parents brings back so many memories and brings forward an insight. Please forgive me for clicheing here, but now that I have a longer view, I’m more aware of what it means to miss the forest for the trees.

I see these earnest discussions on-line, the same kinds in which I engaged back in the day, about things like whether it’s okay to use the words “good job” to encourage your kids. And you know what? It doesn’t matter. If you don’t use those words, or you do, it’s not going to make or break your child. If you love your kid and make them a priority and try your best, then you’ll pretty much do your best for them. It’s okay if you look at a drawing they made and say “Good job.” And it’s okay if you say, “I especially like the shade of blue you used for the sky.” And it’s okay if what you say is, “I love it.” And it’s okay if you say “You really worked hard on that.” What they care about is sharing their joy and accomplishment with you. You’re not going to give them a bad character by choosing one set of words over another. I wish I had spent less energy worrying about things like this over the years.

At least I’ve learned to stop clicking on links to articles that recount the ways in which well-meaning moms and dads (usually moms) are ruining their kids. Ruining them, I tell you. Because they help too much or too little with homework, or they praise too much or too little, or they’re too critical or too accepting of clothing choices. Which brings me to the next lesson I’ve learned as a parent. A million or more people are trying to make money by feeding into your desire to know how to do this sometimes bewildering job. Be selective about where you get advice. I’ve read a few things that helped me in a practical way and many things that were waste of the alphabet. In general, I’ve benefitted by reading accounts by other parents who admit they don’t have all the answers, who want to share the struggle and joy and what worked for them. I’ve found no benefit in articles and books that issue heavy-handed judgments for, I don’t know – spending a few minutes looking at your phone while you push your kid on a swing. I was going to mention specific books, but I think I’ll save that for a separate post.

I do have a few other gems to share, however, now that I’m an all-wise and knowing mom who has mostly raised her kids (ha!) The first being, that you never get to the point where you feel you have all the answers, or if you do, that’s when you get into real trouble. The life of a parent is a life of continual surprises. Here are a few more things, as they occur to me randomly:

*There is no finish line. When I was trying to decide whether to have kids, I’d think to myself “Well, it’s an 18-year commitment.” 19 years in, I laugh at young me. I see now my mom is 89 and still concerned about her children, still wanting to make sure we’re okay, still offering advice for treating that head cold.

*You get what you get. You can’t custom manufacture your children. They come into your life with personalities and characters and talents and struggles that are not of your choosing. A friend of mine once said she thought of it as tending a garden where someone else picked out the plants. A daisy is a daisy, a sunflower is a sunflower, and a bell pepper plant is a bell pepper plant. You can’t change one into another. What you can do is work on nurturing and creating conditions to allow your daisy to thrive as a daisy or your bell peppers to thrive as bell peppers.

*Keeping with the garden analogies, you can’t force a plant to grow by pulling on it. Again, you can nurture it and do your best to give it conditions in which it will grow and bloom. And that’s all. You can’t make your children reach developmental milestones on your schedule, or at all. Often, I found if I was having a real struggle teaching my kids something, the best tactic was wait and try again later. As a small example: my son didn’t learn to tie his shoes until he was seven. But then he learned in five minutes and I never had to show him again. Because he was ready. True story. In the meantime, I gave thanks for Velcro.

*Things will happen to your children over which you have no control. Sometimes these things will change the way you parent. A few years ago my son had a serious health crisis, involving major surgery and the need to keep him from being too active for several weeks. All of my carefully constructed policies about computer time went straight out the window. Also, because I had been so afraid he might die, I became much more indulgent in fulfilling my kids’ desires. It wasn’t a rational or planned response; it was pure emotion that made me say “Whatever they want, I’m going to get it for them if I can.” The pendulum swung back soon enough and I adopted a more balanced approach. But, boy howdy, did that event put my mind into focusing on the present, since the future is so uncertain. (He’s healthy now, by the way.)

*There’s nothing like seeing your child imitating your behavior to motivate you in breaking bad habits.

*Forgiveness is essential. Model it. Expect to need it.

*Don’t be too attached to your things. They’ll get broken or lost. One of my kids has broken a total of four windows over the years, each time in a new and creative way. One pulled the sliding door of a minivan right off its track, when we were already running late, and it was raining. People before things. Make it a mantra.

*Once you have a child, your comfort zone is a thing of the past. You will primarily reside outside of it. The upside is that you’ll experience a lot of personal growth. I’ve gone a long way in overcoming my own social anxiety because I’ve been forced in my role as mom to call strangers on the phone for various things, interact with teachers and other parents, and have awkward but necessary conversations. I’ve found myself in the principal’s office for the reasons you don’t want to be sitting there. I’ve reached out with invitations in ways I used to avoid for fear of rejection because I didn’t want to model fear-based relationships to my kids. I’ve found myself calling a woman I barely knew to tell her that her kid had pilfered Grandpa’s prescription pain pills after I found out about it accidentally. And you know what? I survived all of those things. I’ve discovered that discomfort is temporary and not fatal. And this discovery has helped me cope in other areas of life, including my paid work.

Despite my occasional fantasy of packing my car and driving away to find a studio apartment somewhere by myself, under an assumed name, I’d say motherhood has been good for me. It’s taught me a lot about life and generally made me a better person.

Elders Living Alone – Making Sure They Eat

UPDATE: I’ve made a couple of corrections below, where I mangled Debi’s intent on her suggestions. Sorry about that. Also, an addition at the bottom.

Since my mother is in a skilled nursing facility, I don’t have to worry about meals. But for many adult children of older parents, a big concern is making sure Mom or Dad is eating enough of the right foods. If you live nearby – close enough to visit at least a couple of times a month – there are steps you can take to help.

The following suggestions come from Debi Boggs (Thanks, Debi!):

While visiting, cook in large batches – enough for a meal and at least two servings of leftovers. Freeze the leftovers in single-serving portions. Use resealable bags if washing dishes is a hardship, or something your older relative just doesn’t want to deal with. You can be extra green in your own home to make up for this.

Pizza “kits” make an easy meal. Buy one or two balls of pizza dough at the store, quarter them, stretch them into pizza rounds, and place each round on a sheet of parchment paper. Each quarter will fit into a gallon-sized resealable bag. Take two small bags for each large, pouring the correct amount of sauce in one and the correct amount of shredded cheese in the other. Place these in the larger bags. With a marker, write assembly and baking instructions on the outside of the gallon bags. These kits will stack easily in the freezer.

Roasted vegetables also freeze well and are easy to microwave.

Make a grocery trip and stock the kitchen with a significant inventory of low-prep or no-prep food items: oatmeal, fruit cups (look for the ones packed in real fruit juice), low-sodium soups, coffee, tea, yogurt with the latest possible expiration date, pre-chopped salad, frozen brown rice, canned vegetables. Of course, fresh is healthier, but canned veggies keep for a long time and are a much better option than going hungry.

Whether Mom or Dad is doing the grocery shopping, or having someone else do it for them, a standard grocery list is a good idea. Print and laminate a list of items they consume on a weekly basis. This way, the list can be carried in a purse and re-used.

For those on a budget, check out Aldi’s if there’s one in your area. They usually have the best prices on plain yogurt, canned goods and oatmeal.

The idea is to make it as easy as possible to get good nutrition.

Anyone else have handy tips? Feel free to share in the comments.

Geekster Eggs

Embracing a case of deliberate amnesia about last year’s Easter egg dying fiasco, I boiled eggs and set up dye cups last night, inviting my teenaged kids to join me. And…it went okay. I would say we had fun, even. They’re both so creative. I love seeing how our traditions take on a new flavor as they become young adults. Once the decorating was done, I looked at the results and dubbed them Geekster Eggs.

An Avengers representative set: Captain America, Hawkeye, Thor, Iron Man, Black Widow, Hulk

I have a kid who loves music and physics.

Medicaid Eligibility Review

For my mom in today’s mail: “We are required to complete an annual review of eligibility. In order to determine continued eligibility, we are asking you to complete all questions on the enclosed form.”

I glance at the form – “Page 1 of 6.” Okay then. I know how I’m spending my evening.

I know they need to make sure everything is up-to-date and accurate. It’s just…sigh. Can’t they simply ask if anything has changed instead of making me filling out everything from scratch? Again?

Welp, better stop typing on my blog and start filling in boxes on the paperwork.

We Drove Away and Left the Kids

Practicing for our eventual empty nest, Mr. GenBLT and I took our first ever road trip without our kids this past Saturday. So we were only going to a city two hours away, and not staying overnight, and they are now 15 & 18 years old. But still – we left town without them! It felt momentous.

I called my mom to make sure everything was okay with her, threw a few dollars in the direction my children, and then split town, baby. On a date. The mister works loooong hours, and I, of course, have my day job plus the kids and my mom and the house…so we don’t get out much.

The occasion was a Kansas City Royals game. My hometown team. Neither of my children shares my enthusiasm for baseball. They opted to stay behind and go to a movie together instead.

I had a wonderful day. The Royals won in an exciting 4-3 finish, scoring the winning run in the 8th inning. We were additionally entertained by the guy behind us with a Walter Winchell voice, who kept a running commentary going, but was often trying to play catch-up on what happened while he was talking about the previous play. The hubster and I stopped on the way home to have dinner together. Just the two of us, at a restaurant, trying to recall the last time this happened.

My mom’s okay. My kids are okay, and even managed to feed themselves, plus the pets. The house is still standing. No disaster happened due to our adventure. We might have to try something like this again, in another 6 months to a year.

Another Birthday

My mom made it another year. Last weekend we celebrated her 89th birthday. Going out is too hard for Mom any more. But we had a good celebration anyway. One of my nephews made it into town (the one she likes to mention to people as “my grandson, the eye doctor”) and my 18-year-old baked a truly delish chocolate cake. And I found the perfect birthday gift. My mom worked as a welder during World War II. So for the shelf in her room, what could be more appropriate than this? Yep, I bought my mom a superhero action figure for her 89th birthday. She loved it.

Anything But the Crafts Room

My youngest child is 15. Five years ago today, I volunteered at my last grade school class party. I remember the day with great fondness, recalling the dance of joy I did in the parking lot afterward as I said to myself, “I never have to do that ever again in my entire life!”

The way my kids’ grade school did parties was to have each class rotate through various rooms – the Crafts Room, the Snack Room, the Game Room. My first class party I eagerly asked what I should do and was assigned to the Crafts Room, where I was handed some colored paper and glue sticks, along with an instruction sheet containing unfathomable diagrams. Thirty seconds later I had kindergarteners lined up, waiting for me to show them how to make their whatever it was supposed to be. I’m not a crafty person and I work a lot better with linguistic instruction than pictures. The other parents in the room were breezing through their lines of kids, while I sat and wondered which way the paper was supposed to fold.

I learned a valuable lesson that day. Show up early and grab a spot in the Snack Room dipping ice cream, before someone else takes the position. The number of kids still seems overwhelming, but once you’ve filled them with sugar, you get to send them out of the room to go be someone else’s hyperactive problem.

Valentine’s Day always featured the added bonus of showing up with a case of PTSD from having assembled and addressed three dozen valentines the night before with a kid who insisted they fervently wanted to give out valentines, yet couldn’t seem to get through the task of even signing them. The first couple of years I insisted I wasn’t doing the work for their valentines. This progressed to, “Okay, I’ll make and address half and you address half, but you have to sign them all.” The final year I gave up all pretense. I bought a package of Iron Man perforated cards and forged my son’s name on them. It was easier and less stressful that way.

There are things I miss about having younger kids. I miss going to the park. I miss bedtime reading and snuggles on the couch. But there are compensations, with no more class parties being one of the biggies.

You Were Right, Mom

While my mom is still around, I want to take this opportunity to say, publicly, that she was right about so many things. Not that we see eye-to-eye on everything. But I’ve come around on a lot of issues since I was a kid.

I can rarely convince my son to wear a coat, even on the coldest winter days. I comfort myself by noticing how few kids exiting his high school in the afternoon are bundled up. If I’m a bad mom, at least I have lots of company. I remember how I never wanted to wear a winter hat in my younger days, no matter how many maternal admonishments I received about frost-bitten ears. I wouldn’t believe my mom was right about how important it was to cover your head in order to stay warm, because nobody else my age was doing it. In a concrete sense, I really was too cool.

Somewhere in the years of my adult life I stopped caring whether other people were wearing hats or not. I wanted to be warm. Since I have a lot of hair, I often go for a scarf wrapped around my head in lieu of hat, but I do cover my head with something when the temperature dips below freezing. Mom, you were right. It makes a huge difference.

And, Mom, the thing where you always cleaned the top of a can before opening it? Totally the right thing to do. I used to think this was a silly obsession springing from your clean freak nature. Besides, it added needless seconds onto the food prep time. Then I became a mother, myself. After enough experience cleaning up someone else’s puke, I couldn’t help thinking a little harder about food safety and cleanliness. Once I took the time to make a close observation of the workings of the can opener, I realized how easily the device could push anything from the top of the can into the food. I’ll never reach anywhere near my mom’s level of tidiness, but on this one issue, yeah, she’s probably right. Definitely right. It only takes a couple of seconds after all, to wipe the top of a can. And then I can serve my family tomato sauce with confidence.

Also, my things do last longer when I take care of them. Who would have thought it? Oh yeah – you, Mom.

Christmas on the Couch

It’s Christmas afternoon and I’m still in my pajamas. On the couch. Coughing up a lung. This holiday isn’t going as planned. But then I’ve always heard the way to make the Universe laugh is to make a plan. It must be chuckling up a storm. I’m trying to laugh along and make the best of it. For instance, right after typing that sentence I added to the gaiety by accidentally dumping out the contents of a nearly-full economy-sized bag of cough drops. Ha ha ha!

After my mother spent several hours at our house on Thanksgiving, it became obvious she can no longer handle so much disruption in her day. Her back problems flared worse than ever and she was exhausted. It took her days to recover. I had a little moment when my husband, kids and I were decorating our Christmas tree, our ornaments including a few vintage ones that survived my childhood. I experienced a wave of sadness knowing my mom will never decorate a tree with me again. She’ll likely never come to our house again. I also had a few seconds of irritability over the fact that humanity hasn’t developed teleportation technology yet, because it would solve this problem. She could beam in for a few minutes and then beam back to the nursing home. I settled for taking a photo of the tree to show her.

The best Christmas tree. We got a spectacular one this year. Not many ornaments down low because three cats.

I asked Mom if she thought she could handle a short outing to a restaurant. She believes she can, so our plan was to pick her up on Christmas Eve and go to IHOP, her favorite. For today, I thought I’d make a lasagna and some sides to have at home and at some time during the day pop over to visit Mom again. But over the weekend I developed a tickle in my throat, the same tickle reported by some of my local acquaintances before they fell all-out sick. Yep, I caught the thing that’s going around. Also, over the weekend, one of my molars broke and I managed to acquire a second-degree burn on my arm while removing a dish from the oven. At some point, my life started to resemble a sit-com plot. However, if I’ve learned anything from my mother, it’s to make the best of the situation, whatever it is.

Though I’m sad not to be with my mom on Christmas, I’m reminded once again how blessed I am with family, both immediate and extended. My husband and my 15-year-old son went over yesterday to see my mom (the 18-year-old caught what I have, so stayed home) and take her gift plus the staff gift bag I put together.

Let me go off the rails here, and recommend this idea for nurses, aides and housekeeping staff at skilled nursing facilities. Since there are so many of them, I put together a bag of items for the break room: hot cocoa mix, including regular and sugar-free, a variety of teas, popcorn, mixed nuts, snack crackers, etc. It’s easy and covers everyone.

For the staff break room at the nursing home.

Back to family now – my two guys had a good visit with my mom. Plus I put out the word to far-flung relatives that I couldn’t see her on Christmas, so she might appreciate some phone calls. When I called her about an hour ago, she was thrilled to report her phone had been ringing all yesterday and today. This cheers me up.

Also, my spouse and kids make the holiday fun. We’re a geeky crew who all like a good joke. After my two teens went on errands without me the other day, a package appeared under our tree with a gift tag saying it was to the whole family, and from:

We are favored by the Marvel superheroes.

The kids come by this creative packaging honestly. Here’s what my husband gave me this year:

No really, it's a box of rocks. — No really, it’s a box of rocks.

Oh wait, there was something underneath the rocks. Michelle Obama arms, here I come!

It’s hard not to have fun when the people around you are putting so much effort into making the event enjoyable.

Our three cats have helped, too, taking turns sitting on my lap.

Top Seniority Cat - my 15-year-old kid doesn't remember life without her. — Top Seniority Cat – my 15-year-old kid doesn’t remember life without her.

Cat who is on a diet, but sneaks the other cats' food if we're not careful. — Cat who is on a diet, but sneaks the other cats’ food if we’re not careful.

Cat who showed up and adopted us a few months ago.

Then there’s the Pandora Christmas station for holiday cheer, and Netflix to give me a chance to watch some of those movies I’ve been meaning to watch over the years. I finally saw “White Christmas” with Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye. Not much of a story, after all, but the singing and dancing is wonderful. I tried watching “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation” and now take comfort in the knowledge I haven’t been missing much. After 15 minutes, I switched to “Men in Black.” Much more entertaining. I’ll have to dial up the sequels.

While I languish on the couch, my family members have been foraging in lieu of a Christmas dinner appearing for them. Macaroni and cheese has been cooked, and we’ve wiped out the back stock of canned soup. Meanwhile, IHOP awaits for the day when we’re all well again. And I still have the ingredients for lasagna.

Thanksgiving

I’ve been floundering lately, feeling overwhelmed and undercompetent a lot. I’m glad for the Thanksgiving holiday to help me escape the funk. What a great idea – a holiday about gratitude. I do have so much to celebrate.

So many people say I’m grateful for my family, and I truly am. But that seems so general. For the ones I see all the time, there are specific things I appreciate about each of them.

My mom: First, I’m thankful she’s here to celebrate another holiday with us. We have our differences of opinion, but I’m happy I learned from her the value of doing your best to figure out what’s right and do it. You don’t really see your parents in context until you’re grown and you find out how differently some other people were raised.

There were things I didn’t know to be thankful for when I was growing up, but I do now. My mom never criticized my appearance. She had her ideas about appropriate clothing as far as modesty and I have different standards now, but beyond that, she never said a bad word about my weight, my hair, my complexion, any of it. I took this for granted, not knowing at the time how many girls were developing terrible self-images based on their parents’ critical remarks. Sure, I got plenty of it from society at large, but not getting it from my mom helped me not internalize it. In fact, my mom has never criticized anyone based on looks, or even commented on looks much at all, except for the occasional compliment on a new hairstyle or saying “That color looks good on you.” I’m thankful I was taught by example not to judge someone on appearances.

My husband: I recently read an article about a study of cities in the U.S. that said our little city is one of the hardest-working. My immediate response was “That’s because my husband lives here. He skews the results.” He’s always been willing to work however many hours it takes to get a job done, and is currently doing freelance projects on the side in addition to his day job.

My firstborn (18 years old now): I appreciate her enthusiasm. When she enjoys something – a book, movie, tv show, pet, food – she enjoys it thoroughly and without embarrassment. And she loves to see others enjoying things in equal measure, even if it’s not the same things. She embraces diversity of tastes. And she finds fun ways to share the excitement over her interests. The other day, when I got out of the shower, the mirror was all steamed up. There in the condensation clearly appeared the words “Welcome to Night Vale.” I have one suspect. One. I’m going to miss these little happenings when she eventually moves out.

My younger child (now 15): He has incredible focus and stamina when he’s working on a project. His two big interests are music and computer programming. In either area, he can work for hours on end. There may be an attention span deficit in his generation, but he doesn’t contribute. And then I get new music in my life. So what’s not to like.

I’m leaving now to pick up my mom and bring her to our house for the day. Happy Thanksgiving!