My Shoe is on the Wrong Foot

Toni Evans

“Letting go, letting go.” Does that sound fun? Does that sound cozy? No, it sounds scary. No one can tell me otherwise. It sounds like the title of a Lifetime movie where someone dies of cancer starring a former Charlie’s Angels.

Letting go implies no longer holding onto. Releasing. The dictionary describes release as free, unchain, loosen, liberate, emancipate. These terms seem like a great deal for the kid, don’t they? I hear them and feel like a jailor.

It seems all I do as a mother is let go. Right now the apron strings feel thin, transparent and powerless. The control I had when they were babies is history.

You give birth and they aren’t inside you any more. As they learn to walk, you still can pop them in the stroller or crib and have complete control over their physical space. Eventually they are old enough to unlock the front door, escape into the neighborhood. A good scolding brings hugs and tears, and you still feel like the queen.

Time passes, school years march on. Gradually your suspicions arise. You realize the job you hired-on for, raising this child, is different every darn year. The job requires abstract-thinking and a clown-jugglers balance. They take over a little bit of control and you let go. Repeat, as necessary.

To me, letting go feels like I have my shoes on the wrong feet. I do not feel like a good parent when I let go. I feel like the antithesis of a good parent. I have finally figured out how to get them to make their beds, get their homework done, and give back to society. Now I’m told, “OK, now put it in reverse, the rules have changed starting…now.” The whole parenting path is crazy. You learn new skills about every six weeks, and if you haven’t decided to duplicate the process (have more kids) then you rarely use the same skill set twice. Instead, you are always in survivor, learning what is new in the next developmental stage, the next grade in grammar school, the next level of junior football league, or junior high dances. Sometimes I do picture God up there laughing at us all, like, ‘See it isn’t easy being the parent, is it?’

I am forced to no longer make choices for my kids, or sometimes help them make choices, but instead to watch them make choices. All those years of touting the importance of natural consequences have come to roost. At this point, in the high school years, there will be consequences. Our children will suffer them. We will not be able to change this. As a control-freak mom of four, this is task could not be more challenging to me.

I say there are no ten easy steps in this job, and I’m tired of reading books that tell me there are. I’ve decided the chances of making it through the parenting process without a full head of gray hair (under the highlights) and a regular therapy appointment are slim to none. I think we moms and dads deserve a pass/fail grade system. There are no A+s just like there are no B’s for reaching the peak of Kilimanjaro. No, either you get the child to age 18 and you are still alive and un-hospitalized for sanity issues, or you do not.

My goals for raising my 18-month-old were to be: smart, independent, kind, hard-working, and loving. Now that he is almost an 18-year-old my goals for the next few years are for him to be: childless and healthy. Yes, I have lowered my expectations. Not because he isn’t a great kid, but because a lot of things seem to have sifted down to his territory now. Everything pretty much. I don’t have the control I once thought I had to make him the next Secretary of Education or a researcher for cancer. He gets to make all those choices. My son needs to add his imprint on the world of his own.

I think that I am the one suffering growing pains these days, as my children learn to fly. But if I don’t let go, they’ll never get off the ground.