Learning to Walk

Every mother eventually learns about those first tottering steps: the unsteadiness, the reaching, the need to pull back so as to allow for that budding independence. But these are my steps I’m talking about. Now that my children are nearly grown, I must learn how to maneuver around them again, and like all the steps in motherhood, it isn’t easy.

I’ve noticed that fathers are so different. They will automatically pull back as soon as the children are grown, while some women seem to cling to that mother role for the rest of their lives. And of course I understand why. We mother with our souls. It becomes such a fundamental part of our identity, giving it up means giving up a big part of who we are. But I’ve never wanted to be one of those rigid mothers who can’t give up the Alpha Mom role, who wants to direct her children’s choices and behavior for the rest of her life. So now that my children are older, I’m trying—in my own wavering way—to find where I should rightfully stand and walk that line.

And it’s tough. It’s the line where I try to compliment my son...while making sure the weight loss was intentional. It’s the one where, when he asks me what he should do involving a major life decision, I tell him it’s not up to me and ask him questions I hope will get him to figure it out for himself. And then I try to support his decision.

Of course there are benefits. I lived a long time on the “Mom to Children” side of the line, and it was exhausting. I was a single mother long before it was official, and life was considerably harder than I think anyone knew. Now I’m more than ready to kick back and relax a bit and focus on my own wants and needs.

Plus I’m finding that on the “Mother to Adults” side, there are these fun, pleasant people whose company I enjoy without all the work and responsibility. Just yesterday I spent some time in the car with one of them, and I found myself convinced once again that my soul has known their souls for all eternity, and they’ve just allowed me to play the mom this time. And what a precious gift. I try to cup it so gently in the palm of my hands so that they will always know how deeply I respected that—and them.

That’s life, I guess—a constant process of redrawing the line and then learning to dance around it. How lucky that drawing and dancing are two of life’s greatest joys.

Nobody objects to a woman being a good writer or sculptor or geneticist if at the same time she manages to be a good wife, good mother, good-looking, good tempered, well-groomed, and unaggressive. ~Leslie M. McIntyre