Fam1

If I said it to them once, I said it a million times. Is it my imagination, or have I spent a lifetime of shutting refrigerator doors, writing checks for milk, picking up wet towels, and finding dirty books in the clothes hamper?

Parenting is frustration you have to see to believe. Would I ever have imagined there would be whole days when I didn't have time to comb my hair? Mornings after a party when I looked like George Burns with a migraine? Could I have ever comprehended that something so simple, so beautiful and so uncomplicated as a child could drive you to shout, "We are a family, and by God, you're going to spend a Friday night with me having a good time if I have to chain you to a chair!"

Why don't you grow up?

Parenting is fearful. You don't know how fearful until you sit next to your son on his "maiden voyage" behind the wheel of your car and hear him say "My Driver's Ed teacher says I've only got one problem, and that's every time I meet a car, I pass over the center line."

And you worry. I worried when they stay home. I worried when they were gone (If the stuffed animal is missing from her bed, that's it. She's eloped!!"

I worried when they talked to me (You started taking WHAT???). I worried when they didn't talk to me (This is Mom, and what do you mean Mom WHO???).

I worried when they got a job (He looks so tired, and besides, he could throw his arm out again.). I worried when they didn't get a job (He'll take after your brother, who didn't get a paper route until he was 33!).

Why don't you grow up?

Parenting is pain, and disappointment. The first time I leaned over to kiss my son goodnight and he turned his back to the wall and said, "See Ya."

The first time they hit me with, "I'm not going to Grandma's. It's boring." The first time they left the house and forgot to say, "Goodbye."

And the anger and resentment came. You forgot that part. The nights when I Freudianly set the table for two. The days when I felt like a live-in domestic.

What kind of kids am I raising who would let a hamster die of starvation?

What kind of kids would snicker during the playing of "The Star-Spangled Banner"?

What kind of kids would have a water fight in church.... WITH HOLY WATER???"

Grow up. Won't you?

And the days of compassion. These were the most agonizing of all. When the tenderness I felt for my children swelled so that I thought I would bust if I didn't cradle them in my arms.

This half-child, half-adult groping miserably to weigh life's inconsistancies, hypocracy, instant independence, advice, rules, and responsibilities.

The date that never showed. The Captaincy that went to his best friend. The honors that went to someone else. And they turned to me for the answer.

The phone was ringing, I was worming the cat. There was a cake in the oven, and a salesman was at the door. And I admonished, " That's part of growing up, and why don't you???"

And there were joys. Moments of closeness.... an awkward hug; a look in the semi-darkness when you turned off the test-pattern as they slept. The pride of seeing them stand up when older people entered the room and saying "Yes, Sir" and "No, Ma'am" without a cue-card in front of them.

It's not time yet, it can't be. I'm not finished. I had all the teaching, and the socks to pick up, and the buttons to sew on... there was not time for loving.

That's what it's all about isn't it? Did they ever know I smiled? Did they understand my tears? Did I talk too much? Did I say too little? Did I ever look at them and really see them? Do I know them at all? Or was it all a lifetime of, "Why don't you grow-up?s"

I walk through the house and automatically shut a refrigerator door that is already shut. I stoop to retrieve a towel that has not fallen to the floor, but hangs neatly on the towel rack. From habit, I smooth out a spread that is already free of wrinkles. I answer a phone that has not rung, and with a sublety that fools no one, I hide the cake for dinner in the oven.

And I shout, "WHY DON'T YOU GROW UP!!!?????"""

And the silence where once abounded frustration, fear, joy, dissappointment, resentiment, compassion, and love echoes... "I DID!"

-Erma Bombeck (RIP)
With MUCH Respect from NEO-Realms BBS

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