Parents, Kids Change Roles
/The Boston Herald
NEW YORK -- When my son was small and it was winter, we would go for walks in the woods. And he would stretch his legs and take giant steps to walk in my footsteps, the imprint of his boot always swallowed up by mine. It was the same thing with snow angels. I'd make one and he'd make one and there they'd be, side by side. But then he'd jump in the middle of mine and make himself flat and when he got up there would be in the snow his small contour, defined yes, but snug within the confines of mine.
Why do I think of this now? Those days in the snow are so long gone that they feel more like a chapter in a book I read than a chapter in my life. The little boy in the blue snowsuit hasn't been a little boy for many years. If we were to walk in the woods today, he would be the one leading and I would be the one following, my footsteps lost in his.
When he lived in London and my husband and I visited, he took my hand every time we crossed a street, not for his safety but for mine. Every time we're in a city that he knows and we don't, he takes charge.
This change from child to adult is inevitable and good, though these are things that you never read in any of the parenting books. Spock and Bettleheim take you only so far. They guide you through colic and the terrible twos and sibling rivalry and separation anxiety and pre-and post-adolescence, but then they say, OK, Mom and Dad, this is the end. You've graduated. You're finished.
But you're not. Parenthood Part II is a whole other story, uncharted terrain. So why do the child experts leave you to navigate this part of the trip alone?
I am on that trip now, in New York in my son's apartment. Last night my husband and I were with our daughter who lives five blocks away. "Come see where we live,” they both said. So we came.
We visit wherever they live. We are like seasoned tourists, constantly discovering something new or something old that we never noticed before. "Do you like the fish tank, Mom? Do you like the kitchen?" our daughter asks. And we say yes, we love it. We love where she put the Disney figures. We love her new couch. We love it all, we tell her.
We sat for a while on her new couch and I thought by what grace have we been allowed the privilege of seeing our children grown? And why, in all the breast-beating books that tell you in great detail every little pitfall of parenting, doesn’t anyone even hint at its blessings? Why isn't it known that the prize isn't getting to the head of the class at all, but just being in the class, in the audience, a teacher turned student, a performer content to watch someone else perform?
There's a circle in this. Parents lead and children follow. And then inevitably children lead and parents follow.
As I sit in my son's apartment, the image of his footsteps within mine are so clear I can feel the cold of the snow. I am back to where it began, but I am here, too. For the reality is this: I fit myself into my son's space now.
If anyone had told me this would happen, would I have believed it? "Mom! It stopped snowing. Can we go out and play?" still echoes in my head. Yet here I am, smiling at a note my son left, "Mom and Dad . Make yourself at home.”
He is the one taking the lead and I am happy just to follow.
