I speak repeatedly of becoming aware of my youngest becoming an only child, as the older two live their adult lives. But I realise now her whole life has been slightly different.
It was highlighted when driving home from the Hunter and we decided to stop for lunch on the beach at Terrigal. "Which beach?" she asked.
"You know, near Star of the sea"
"Where?"
"The place with the water slide between two pools"
"What?"
"We used to go with Ronny and Rex*"
"Which ones are they?"
(*These are friends kids we have know since birth and gone on many weekends away and week's skiing together - the kids match the older two in age, 2 share a name and a week apart in birth days. I made up the names here to protect the innocent)
After I explain, she replies:
"No, I don't remember."
And it dawned on me she was probably pretty little the last time we went. Every year we would go away to Terrigal for the weekend and share a very glam apartment in a resort with another family. The kids adored it. Even when we thought they were probably too old for it, they asked to go back and after a few years hiatus, we returned. We must have been there 10 times across 14 years....but of course, she would have been 4 or 5 the last time we went.
I don't know if it's my age and ever increasing nostalgia but I felt sad that all these fabulous memories we worked so hard to make for the kids someone elude the youngest.
It dawned on me, that while I was well aware no two children have the same parents, they don't even have the same family memories. Family memories are my memories. My memories of the kids. The kids might have a different memory completely.
Just makes me more resolved to make sure she has some magical ones of her own.
(On the plus, I had taken her and a friend up to the Hunter for the Snow Time so I guess her fun memories are same but different - I just have to work a bit harder to make them happen. I'm now already scheming to get her and some of her friends up to Star of the Sea for some fun on that waterslide....).
I was at the post office and in the queue I saw this. I was struck with a sadness that I had no little people to give them to. I spent a good decade watching Blue's Clues on video. And yes, I mean on video. My eldest got them when they came out but we didn't move on with Joe and the other presenters. When Steve went to college, we just stayed with the videos & DVDs that we had. We had the toys and all sorts of learning games. Each new baby would grow into them. As a result, I have a lot of fondness and nostalgia wrapped up in them as one kiddo has moved out and one is on the way. As a parent, you realise you have these precious moments that weren't precious at all at the time, but become so special in hindsight. I pointed the toys out to the adult child with me who just sort of shrugged and looked at me as if humoring my 'having a moment'. Evidently the memories weren't as special to him as they've become for me.
The high schooler in our house is very much an only child now. While I'm very happy for the one that's moved out, I work to make time for the five of us to get together. It makes me so happy. The travel holidays are now just the three of us as the two adult kids are busy, but I'm thrilled to have a 2 night local getaway booked at Christmas with the whole family. I'm more excited about that than the overseas trip I'm booking in January!
My eldest had mentioned after a year of living out, she might come home when her lease is up so they could save some money before moving to a different place. I was so excited but tried to contain it, calmly saying 'whatever you need to do, there's always a room for you here'. However, that still seems to be a plan in motion. I think her partner is struggling with the rent but my child is not. I'm not sure it's going to occur, as they are now 'figuring it out'. I'd love to have my house full again - in lockdown we were 6 (her partner moved in) so we had 2 extra years of their childhood so to speak. I shouldn't be greedy. At AJR, they sang this song, which I'd not heard before and it really tapped into my feelings. I said to my friend 'I know it's not their point, but this song means something totally different to me as the parent of a kid who has moved out'. What's anxiety and failure to one person, is a joyful gift to the mother now watching in the distance.
I was with a friend whose adult kids haven't moved out yet, and their family is going to Canada for a skiing holiday and then going their separate ways to different parts of the States with friends while she visits a cousin in Canada. Her eldest changed their plan and said "I might come with you' and my friend said no. She told me she wanted a break and some time to herself. I think that's the difference. Once they move out, you'd do anything to be with them. It's a luxury. I would have relished the opportunity!
Motherhood is weird. I am watching friends discover it's just them and their husband left in the house, even if the adult kids are living at home, they're rarely there. One said "We have to be friends now and do stuff together". Another said to me "So is this it now? What am I meant to do?" and another, who never really asked me to do stuff is now inviting me to plays and we are going to the theatre with an unprecedented frequency. I think this empty nest stuff is tough on women. We invest time and energy into our family life, but then to be a good mother, we also have to stand back and let them flourish on their own. I wrote about the strange emptiness in the house (in the family?) when she moved out. We've adjusted but the excitement and happiness I get when we're all together is indescribable.
I left for college at 18 and never really moved back. It was such a formative and fun time for me, and I have to wish that for my kids. The child of a friend from College was going interstate to live on campus and she rang me saying "I've been telling everyone for months how great it will be for him and now I don't want him to go". I pointed out it will be great for him, he'll love it but it won't be great for her & to remember she's the only one in the scenario feeling a loss, so be mindful not to taint his enjoyment. I reminded her it probably wasn't great for her parents when she did exactly the same thing. But that's the gift we give them, these loves of our lives. We give our life and soul until they don't need it, only there for when they want it. Erma Bombeck described mothers perfectly when she said "they’ve gone from supervisor of a child’s life to a spectator. " My friend has booked some grand prix OS holidays because she knows, just as she did, you start to find reasons you can't come home in the holidays when you're having too much fun on campus....it's all part of growing up. It's the part we don't discuss. We parents also continue to grow up, into a different sort of parenting....but we can be a bit sneaky too, in order to lure our families into being whole again, even if just briefly.
So I will continue to celebrate the 'party of 5' when I get the chance, but keep working on celebrating their moving on as well. I don't want to be the parent that guilts their child into coming home for a visit. So I bite my tongue more often than not because I know my eldest would feel bad if she knew how much I'd love her back home.
“Some people believe holding on and hanging in there are signs of great strength. However, there are times when it takes much more strength to know when to let go and then do it.” —Ann Landers
I have kids in 3 different schools and I've found there is a constant need to visit uniform shops, create costumes for performances and provide notes for excursions, driving courses to attend, study lectures and a myriad of other things that may or may not be brought to my attention.
I had to go to Kmart to buy the shirt needed for the concert, so I emailed the class and took orders, and got what I could, as it seemed pointless for everyone to have to go for the same thing.
When I discovered we'd missed the excursion note, I emailed my friends just in case they were in the same boat and one of them had also missed it. She too was able to call the office and pay, and sign the form before departure in the morning.
With the HSC pending, we're sharing information on open days and other things that may be of interest. There is information everywhere, not just the school news letters, so it's worth sharing what you find.
If you aren't doing this, consider starting to do so. Life gets busier and busier, and the high school students are not necessarily as efficient as they should be. What started as an easy habit in primary is just as useful in high school.
We don't all need to reinvent the wheel - if you're going to the Uniform shop (if it's offsite), put it up on FB and save someone the trip.
If you have to make a costume for the concert, work together with the other families who need the same costume. Many hands make light work - and having many people scouting different locations for the difficult items is a blessing.
Offer to carpool to those weekend birthday parties. Let someone else have some of their weekend back. Next time they might do the save you the four hours out of your Saturday.
They may not be your child's friends, and they may not even be your friends, but you are all kicking around together for 6 or more years, and they are your child's cohort, so it is in the interest of your 'village'. And you never know, one day it will be you who gets the much needed heads up, or saved the trip to the shops.
Over the many years, it all evens out in the end.
Linking this post about making the school days easier (for everyone, both parents and kids) with #TellUsAbout School days....
There is a wonderful scene in Dispatches from Elsewhere where the character, Simone, goes back to her former college professor for help with something. He tells her he was hoping she was coming to re-enroll. Simone responds that she feels she's not in a position to make big life decisions. He points out that it's not a big life decision, it's just a decision for now and she's allowed to change her mind. He himself had started in Marine Biology before deciding he was passionate about art. "We make a decision and then if we need to, we make another decision".
With kids at school, they fall into a path or hobby (or parental pressure) and it grows, and they're pushed along, forgetting that at any point they can decide to follow another interest. They need to pick subjects to carry them through the last years of school, with limited experience in any of them. They need to pick University courses or jobs with a long career in mind, more or less when they're fifteen years old.
But it's not really how life works, so why do we set them up with this expectation placed upon them?
At a talk at one of the Universities, they asked everyone over 35 to put their hand up if they were still doing the thing they started when they left school. Not a single hand went up, including lecturer's. The conversations framed around the HSC are completely unrealistic.
I think we'd take a lot of pressure off school leavers if we made them understand this. The next step after the HSC means very little, in the grand scheme of thing. Perhaps better advice for these kids, pressured into deciding their future at 18 is, as the art professor says "Find something that makes you feel good, try it out. You're allowed to be wrong".
It doesn't matter if you don't know what you want to do next, just do whatever is in front of you, but do it with purpose and dedication, and to the best of your abilities.
We have mistakenly somehow turned the HSC into some sort of achievement in itself, and done a disservice to the students in the process. Rather than preparing for a new beginning, the focus is too sharp on marking the end of school. The students feel enormous (and unnecessary) pressure for the HSC exams, but as we see with the University drop out rates, they also aren't prepared for the expectations of what lies beyond the school gate. We have failed them in their final year of school and their readiness for their choices afterwards.
There is a new push in schools to make pupils see that year 12 is actually a transitional preparation year, preparing the pupil for work or study after the completion of their school years. We need to remember the HSC is merely the starting point of adulthood, not a destination in itself and in no way should it be viewed with the importance of a 'Big Life Decision'.
Linking with #MLSTL as a reminder that in life there are really very few Big Life Decisions.
I have
quite a few women friends becoming dissatisfied in their work. It's not
something they've usually had an issue with. There does however seem to be a
pattern amongst these women. While I think the bushfires has actually given us
all a low grade depression (and add to that the governments appalling inaction
on climate change so we know it will only get worse for us so there's also a
feeling of futility and despair), and the fact no one could exercise properly
or enjoy being outdoors for the last four months, which has a very damaging
side effect to our mental wellbeing, I do believe there is more to it.
All these
women have one child finished school and the other one heading into the senior
years. The children are becoming more independent and our role as mother is
becoming less relevant. Once one child finishes the HSC, you realise it's not
the big fanfare that we're led to believe. It is literally as Michael
Carr-Gregg says in his book, Surviving the HSC, merely the third 'transition
into work or study'. That first year post HSC makes you realise your role as mother
is ending, at least in that level of involvement.
Just as
perimenopause heralds the occurrence of menopause with a few minor symptoms,
this is the beginning of the realisation that soon your life will just revolve
around you. After the years of juggling family life and children's needs, that
can be daunting as it requires you to know what your needs and desires are to
feel fulfilled.
Basically,
there are suddenly a lot less things to distract you from your work, so you
need work to be a lot more engaging and interesting than it was before. The
need for satisfaction from work becomes greater than it's ever been. That's a
big ask as it hasn't changed necessarily, you have.
We
suddenly discover we are at an age where life is more about us than it has been
for at least the last 18-20 years. We need something invigorating in our
lives. We need our lives to be meaningful again. And for a lot of us, that's
causing dissatisfaction in work, because that's the thing that's still taking
up most of our time and where our focus and self-esteem is.
I don't
have the solution yet, but I do believe understanding what's causing the issue
is a good start. Only you can decide if there really is a problem with your
job, and if changing work will be a solution or will you just carry that dissatisfaction with you to a new workplace? For some people, making time for
hobbies will solve it. For some people they need to discover what they actually
enjoy doing. For others, a new career will be the solution. Something they've
always dreamed of or something that will help others or an impactful work.
My only
advice is that it appears to be a common problem. It is worth investigating
what is specifically the cause before you take action. A little introspection
can never hurt.
Are you feeling this or noticing it in your circle of friends? What do you think? Does Peri-emptynesting exist?
I have spent the week talking to a number of friends whose kids are having hard times finding themselves. Life is tough. Tough because they're gay and this country at the moment seems particularly unkind to those who are just trying to make their way in the world like everyone else. Tough because their high ATAR didn't seem to bring them what they thought it might. Tough because their parents seem to have expectations at odds with their happiness. Tough because they just don't know how to find their passion or place in the world.
I have also met a number of adults at parties that seem to be in the same boat. Age doesn't seem to have speed up their ability to find what makes them happy and flourish. Neither in work or interests. Unfortunately, the older you get, the more foreign the idea of change becomes.
I've just discovered MOTi and the very wonderful advice in his song, 'You just don't know it yet'. To all those kids and their parents, just remember, while struggling to find where to fit in "You will find that heaven's in you, you just don't know it yet".
There is a light buried inside us all. You just need to find out how to turn it on. It may not be the path you thought you would take, and there's a very good chance it won't be the path your parents or school told you to take. It probably won't be the 'should' that gets given to you by others. It may be a few steps down the wrong path and then a sharp left. Who knows? If you are doing something that makes you unhappy, there's a pretty good chance that whatever you are doing is not it. Try something else. Focus and work hard on whatever your current endeavour is, even if it isn't your passion, so you know for sure when it's time to move on that it is for the right reasons. But know when you do find it, and love it, you will be fabulous.
There is a step in parenting no one really tells you about. My eldest has a partner who has become very much a part of our family. A regular fixture in the house and at family meals, and even came on a daytrip for lunch with my mum and a family visit to the dentist (to be fair, I don't think he realised how long the whole exercise was going to take, but came along and joined in the joking fights over who was DJ in the car and which of my music didn't sound like a poor copy of Avicii - apparently all of it does, according to the kids, but they're wrong).
I like this kid. A lot. But they're young, so it stands to reason that eventually, a time will come when we say goodbye. If we're lucky enough for that opportunity. There has been a previous long term relationship, and after 4 years, one day we just never saw him again. Gone, with no warning. At least no warning we were privy to, the parents and siblings. No chance to say goodbye.
After a recent Sunday lunch out, we played Mario kart on the machines left in the foyer of the shopping centre, everyone taking turns to compete with each other. The five of us are now a very easy six. I looked at my husband while the kids were playing and beamed "I love this" and he knew I meant the new dynamic, and agreed.
But fast forward through life, and another friend is planing his exit after twenty something years of marriage. It's sort of heart breaking. There's no one else, just a lot of unhappiness. An empty nest about to become emptier.
For some reason it makes this new love seem all the more precious. And perhaps more ephemeral. Glittering on the horizon only to one day be a vague memory, now irrelevant.
My heart will break just a fraction at the loss too, but I'll probably have no chance to say goodbye. I guess this is a part of parenting that you never get to grow out of, as the stage is a permanent one, regardless of age.
I guess this is why you hold onto the minutes you get together as tight as you can.
