Homeland Security

A truth revealed itself to me this morning. We mothers spend a fair amount of time wishing our kids would be home and get home safely. We spend roughly the same amount of time secretly wishing they would go away…just for a little while.

The truth is, we love our children. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that we like spending time with them. Given that my nest is sometimes empty, I’m cherishing every family meal as if it were the Last Supper. As surprisingly educated verbal lobs bounce across the table (who knew they were actually learning something in school?!), I listen in amazement as they spout opinions and ideas that have merit and thought behind them.

But it definitely goes without saying, in fact, we parents are afraid to say it, that teen and young adult children make our lives kinda complicated. As parents, we’re not really sure what we’re supposed to do. (Shhh, don’t tell them this. They think we’ve actually thought this through.)

If you ask the kids, they’d say that we have no business being in their business. Sometimes they’re right. We should leave them alone to make their own mistakes, dress badly, wake up late and find their own jobs. But seriously. When have you met a mother who has minded her own business? I’ve never studied Greek or Latin, but I’m pretty sure that “Mother” means “I care too much” in both of those languages.

The high school child has told us, in no uncertain terms, that our opinions have no value, our comments are unwelcome and the information dissemination will be on a need-to-know basis. (Need-to-know can be interchanged with need money.) Frankly, the Geneva Convention should have a section on “Humane Conversations with a Smart-Ass High School Kid Who Knows Everything.”

Once the college child, a.k.a. Human Cyclone, has arrived in one piece on terra familia firma, they spread their crap and circumstance all over our formerly well-ordered households. They are Peanuts’ Pig Pen to our Martha Stewart. Suffice it to say, you know they’ve arrived.

But that’s not the tricky part. What throws our yin and yang into cosmic imbalance is that while they were away, despite our best efforts, they started doing things their way. God, that’s infuriating! How dare they fold clothes differently than dear old Mom! The nerve of them to hang their jacket on a dining room chair!

When my kids were little, I remember feeling bamboozled when I would pick them up from child care and they would fall apart in front of me. The ever-competent teachers would assure me that the kids had a marvelous time that day and were smiling and laughing mere seconds before I walked in the door. So why wasn’t I greeted with a flurry of hugs and kisses instead of tears and whining? It’s because they waited for me to fall apart – an odd concept that continues to prove itself over time.

You see, our kids go out into the cold, impersonal world and put on their best faces. They act brave and funny and interesting and social and perhaps even polite. And then they walk in the door of our home, take off their wall of defense and spew back all of the low self-esteem, inadequacies, anger and injustice they’ve been holding in all day or all semester.

That’s the hard, cold truth. They save it for us, because right now, we’re their most important people. The ones they trust to keep loving them despite their attempts to make us feel otherwise.

I guess that’s OK. I’ll take what little I can get, while I can still get it.

But dammit, washing a dish once a week won’t kill them, will it?! Oh, who am I kidding?