The Bittersweet Shift: When Your Children No Longer Need You

Parenting young adults is “a thing." A full-spectrum-emotion, beautiful-and-heart-wrenching kind of thing.

It’s not something we are taught how to do. There’s no guidebook. No schedule. No parenting forums.

Just… space.

In my case, over 3000 miles of space.

I’m on my way home from visiting our middle son in New York City.

By all accounts, he’s thriving. Confident. Brave. Living a bold, authentic life.

I’m proud. Truly proud.

And also sad.

We spent many, many years helping to form him into who he is. Now that he is fully cooked, he is gone.

It is the way it is supposed to be, and also not.

The realization that your child no longer “needs” you is a significant life-altering moment.

Sure, to some degree, he still does, but it's not the same.

My intention in parenting was to raise mostly happy, mostly healthy, mostly responsible, mostly independent adults who want to spend some time with me.

I succeeded. But I am not ready.

My brain kept trying to scan for something to help with. Something to fix. Advice to give.

He doesn’t need this. Nor want this.

My job as a parent has clearly changed.

For the second time. My oldest doesn’t need or want me to weigh in either. Unless it's a pediatric question. He is now married and has a child.

That, too, is a gift.

Both of these relationships are bittersweet.

What is my role as a mom now?

Especially as a mom of sons.

When we get together now, one of us is always “visiting.”

Our lives are separate.

This is never more clear when your son lives 3000 miles away in a city of 8 million people, and you live in the country in a town of 250.

What I hear all around me is how moms are too much or too little. Don’t understand. Outdated.

Potentially not in line with the ideas of our sons, DIL’s (or future DILs.) I thought some of these thoughts about my mom too. It’s what is supposed to happen.

What I am choosing to do now is to try to show up mindfully and intentionally.

To be aware.

To release judgment and the urge to strive.

To practice compassion—for them and for myself.

To pay attention on purpose to the good stuff.

To remain curious and patient.

To trust that we did a good job… and that they will too.

To practice generosity of spirit.

To tell good stories.

This season of parenting requires a whole different kind of presence. And a very different kind of letting go.

For today, I am letting myself feel it all.

The pride and the grief.

Pride is a slippery thing for me. I was trained not to bask in either success or even good.

I have gotten better at practicing pride abount my own life choices, but playing with superstition for my kids is next level.

Grief isn’t any easier for me because it isn’t something I can control or fix.

I am back to “What would love do?”

Love would allow all the feelings.

Love would take up residence in the bittersweet. Love would recognize these noticeable moments of transition—not as losses, but as an expansion.

I am still working on this one.

If any of you have tips for more easeful navigation, my heart and mind are open and curious.

For today, as I arrive my “home,” leaving part of my heart and home in NYC, I am thankful that for a little longer I have one more son who still “needs” me in a more recognizable way - even if he is choosing to jump out of airplanes.