Raising Kids to Let Them Go

My mom will have been dead 10 years in September.  My kids were 9, 6, and almost 4 when she left us, and as a young mom, I thought I would be okay because I figured I had the parenting thing under control.  My kids were well-adjusted, polite, inquisitive, and kind.  I knew I would miss her, but I thought I would miss her most at parties and holidays and babysitting.  I thought there wasn't much more she could teach me because parenting in the 2000s was so much different than the 1970s and 80s.

We had already had our spats about why I limited my kids' cartoon watching.  "I never limited how many cartoons you all watched," she had stated.  True, but when we were kids, there wasn't a whole network devoted to cartoons that ran 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.  Our cartoons were Scooby Doo and Bugs Bunny and Tom and Jerry (after school from 3-6 and on Saturday mornings until noon), not The Fairly Odd Parents and The Simpsons and Dexter's Laboratory.

And video games.  Sheesh!  We had Atari with Pac-Man and Donkey Kong and pixelated frogs trying to get across a busy road.  I had to worry about my kids going to someone's house where an older sibling was shooting policemen and raping unsuspecting women and dropping F-bombs all in graphic detail on their 48 inch plasma screen tv.

And then there were cell phones.  Facebook.  Texting.  Instant messaging.  Instagram.  Snapchat.  Twitter.  Vine.  The list goes on.  My mom would have been no help at all in wading through the cesspool that is social media, I thought.  Except that she was.  She had raised me to be a decent, caring, responsible person who behaved when no one was looking and did the right thing because it was expected.  And even though she was gone, her influence on me, and thus, my children, came down through the decades.  I have the same expectations of my kids that my mom had of me, and for the most part, they rise to the occasion.

These middling years, figuring it out on my own how to get the kids through as unscathed as possible, has been challenging, but I think I'm doing an okay job.  We've had some detours and a few bumps in the road, but we are on track for some responsible, well-adjusted adults heading out on their own to make their ways in life.

And this is where I realize that I could really use my mom right now, because how in the world do you let your kids go?  It doesn't matter if you are a 19th century mother sending your son west on horseback across the Allegheny Mountains or a mother in Ireland watching your daughter sail to America with all she owns in a brown leather trunk or a Kentucky mom leaving your daughter on the steps of her  boyfriend's house in the middle of Central Texas while you head the 1000 miles back home.

Mom and me, on one of her first trips to visit me in Texas, fall 1991.

How do you let go?

Because that is the way it's supposed to be, right?  I'm supposed to raise my kids and send them off to live lives of their own making, hopefully happy, productive lives, but their lives nonetheless.

So when I hear Kyle say he wants to leave Kentucky and go to Chicago or New York or Germany, I have to be open to that.  When I hear Claire, two years left here at home, talk about colleges in California or Pennsylvania or Tennessee, my job is to help facilitate that, to make sure that she is equipped to fly and then watch her sail into the distance.  When I think of Emily as the last child at home, probably for only 5 more years, I feel panic rise and have to take some deep breaths.  The time with them is slipping through my fingers like sand, and  I have to remind myself that my job as a mother is to raise my kids and set them free.  If I do a good job, then they leave because I have equipped them with the skills and confidence to lead lives of worth and value.

But damn it's hard.  It's hard to create these beautiful creatures that I love with every fiber of my being and then let them go.  They are my joy.  My life.  And I want to ask my mom, "How do you do it???  How did you let me go?  How did you physically get in the car and drive away?" I remember the deep sense of loss I felt as a daughter watching the car turn the corner and disappear, but now that I'm a mother, I just cannot imagine leaving my child to a life of her choosing, so far away from me.

So even though Mom would be no help with much of what I deal with as a parent today, I really wish I could ask her how to let go, because I just don't know how I will be able to do it.

The kids and me.  New Orleans, January 2015.

Hiking

I hiked again yesterday, and this time, I wasn't bringing up the rear until the very end.  And I'm not too sore to walk today.  Progress!  It has taken me a few fits and starts to get going, but it has been one of the best things I have done for myself in a long time.

After my scare in January with the mammogram-biopsy-everything-was-fine-thank-god, I decided to make some changes in my life.  One of the things I knew I needed to do was get moving.  I H.A.T.E. to exercise.  I'm very uncoordinated, so any type of group class is out of the question.  I don't enjoy running.  Never have. Never will.  Walking is so boring that I can't wait to be done, and I usually quit before I go more than 45 minutes.  I am awful at sports.  Love to watch, but totally can't play.  My options for getting my body moving were limited.

A couple of my friends hiked once a week, and I thought it could be fun to get out in nature with them.  I could maybe, maybe overcome my fear of snakes to begin to enjoy being on a trail in the woods.  I could meet some new people, make better friends, have some accountability...I decided to try it.

The first couple of weeks after I called my friend, Julie, to ask if I could join in, we had snow and really, really cold weather, so we didn't hike.  When things finally warmed up, hiking started again, and I was there, ready to move.  Only I had no idea that we MOVED!

We drove out to Waverly Park, my old stomping ground, and hiked.  Holy smokes!  It was cold that day, but after about 5 minutes of trying to keep up with Amy and Sarah, I was huffing and puffing and had broken out in a little bit of a sweat.  I had fancied myself in decent shape until that morning.  I was wildly mistaken!  Those ladies left me in the dust!  Not really, Julie hung back with me, and they would wait until we caught up every mile or so, but dang, I had no idea that this was what they meant by HIKING.  I texted my sister that I was bringing up the way rear, and she said, "Be the cow tail!"   I texted back that it was a long-ass cow!

The best thing about that day was that it was cold, so I didn't even worry about seeing a snake.  And I felt proud of myself for getting out there and making an effort.  We talked (when I could breathe!) and laughed and marveled at the beauty that I had no idea was Waverley (since I'd never been anywhere but the parking lot!)

I couldn't really move my legs for about 4 days after that, but the next week, I was game for Charlestown State Park in Indiana.

Again, we HIKED, but we did it in segments.  The trails were a couple of miles long each but not connected, so we would drive from one to the other.  It was a nice respite from continuous hiking.  Beautiful there too, with views of the Ohio River and old army depot ruins...a hidden gem!

I was the cow tail again, but like my sister said the week before, I had to start somewhere.

A minor surgery the following Tuesday kept me out for a couple of weeks then a repair to a leaky kitchen pipe (it was actually a big leak in the wall behind the cabinets, but that's a story for another day...) and then yesterday was the next time I could hike.  It's amazing what three weeks in spring can do to the woods.

We went to Cherokee Park, close because we all had somewhere to be before noon.  We started at Big Rock and hit the trails running (almost).  I was able to hang in the middle for most of the hike.  There were 3 ladies who were a few yards in front, and a few more ladies several yards behind.  I was by myself in the group, alone with my thoughts and my breathing.  It was nice.

As I climbed the rocks along Beargrass Creek, I thought of my dad as a little boy playing here, swimming, finding arrowheads enough to fill a shoebox.  I could see him splashing in the water, jumping off Big Rock, a child of the '30s enjoying the freedom of a kid in those days.  I thought of the native people who had camped here for thousands of years before the settlers arrived.  I looked for remnants of their existence, an overlooked arrowhead or a charred mark on the overhang. Didn't find anything but had fun looking.

As we crossed over roadways and skirted neighborhoods, I looked at the mansions that border the park.  I considered the people who live there now and wondered about the original inhabitants, what they do/did to have such a beautiful residence.  I imagined Daisy Buchanan gazing out a window after Jay Gatsby; or the well-heeled Louisville society people sipping after dinner drinks on the patios of an evening.

We hiked on.  We passed a meadow being converted into a bird sanctuary, blooming with wildflowers.  Skirted I-64 and the Cochran Hill Tunnel, cars zipping by not 50 yards away, the drivers oblivious to the half dozen or so women sweating it out on the trails above.  Saw box turtles (2) and a deer resting in the dappled shade of the deep woods.  I was able to tune out all of the noise of the cars and the neighborhoods and concentrate on the birds warbling in the trees.  The woodpeckers going to town on some half-rotted tree trunk full of bugs.  The sound of Beargrass as it fell over rocks.  Who knew all of this was within 5 miles of downtown Louisville?  It was amazing!

And in all of this, I did think of snakes, but we were moving too fast for me to look for them.  Unless one was on the trail right in front of me, I wouldn't have seen it, and that is a good thing!  Plus, you can imagine that all of us together make quite enough noise to scare away any animal that has sense enough or speed to get out of our way.

So, I will continue with the hikes.  I do slow down once in awhile to take a picture or two.  It is part of me capturing my journey, both on the trail and in my life.