Valerie Schultz: Baby all grown up, but mom's not quitting just yet
| Tuesday, Oct 13 2009 04:48 PM
Last Updated Tuesday, Oct 13 2009 04:48 PM
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If my daughter had been on time for her birth, she would have turned 18 six days ago. Instead, because she took her time emerging into the cold world, her 18th birthday is today, Oct. 15. It seems like it should be a milestone.
And of course it is: She can now vote, apply for certain jobs, join the military, get married, gamble, buy cigarettes, and go to real prison instead of juvie if she commits a crime. She is legally an adult, even if she still can't buy alcohol or rent a car. I remember thinking, in the long-ago days before I was a mother, that when a child turned 18, the parental job was done. Indeed, the legal obligation is over. But now that I am a mother, I understand that parenting is something we do until death.
Not every parent agrees. My lab partner in my high school physiology class was kicked out of his home when he turned 18. My grandmother charged my mother, her own daughter, for room and board when my mother, fresh out of high school, got a clerical job. As soon as foster children turn 18, they "age out" of the system, and government services for them largely evaporate. So maybe my husband and I should get serious with our grown daughters. Those Triple-A cards we pay for? Forget them. Those family-plan cell phones? Get your own! We could tell them that it's time for tough love.
Except that we're not that tough, and our daughters work hard for a living. They hold down multiple jobs to get by in this difficult economy, and ask us for very little. Since they have never taken advantage of the small things we are able to do for them, we've never felt the need to cut them off. We don't mind being a bit of a safety net.
Now, except for our youngest, they are all in their 20s, and I completely understand something my mother told me when my girls were little. "You may think you'll be done when they're all grown up and out of the house," she said, "but I still worry about you." At the time I was in my 30s. I was married, a homeowner, and reasonably financially stable. What was there to worry about? And maybe 'worry' wasn't the right word, exactly, but I know now how she felt. My children are all adults, but I still want to be able to keep the boogie man away from them. I want them to be unscathed by life, which I know is impossible. I want them to be ridiculously happy and worry-free. I want to do their worrying for them.
The first 18 years of my baby's life have flown by so fast that it takes my breath away. Here she is, a freshman in college, pledging to a sorority, supremely able to take care of herself. I am so proud of her. But sometimes I still want to tuck her in. I want to turn on the night light and make sure she has Scooter the much-loved stuffed dog under one arm and Lamby the crummy-looking, once-white lamb under the other. Those days are over. There's no going back. But I can assure her, on this memorable day, that wonderful, magical things are ahead. And tucked deep in the lining of my heart is this secret: she will always be my baby.
