I have parented for 25 years. Parenting was easy for me to fall into. Parenthood was not. I loved the day to day of breastfeeding, changing diapers, cuddling and bed sharing. Infants gave way to toddlers and the endless putting out of fires, huge emotions and major developmental growth.
School age children meant navigating interactions with different families, different schedules and a new level of exhaustion. Balancing work, my workload at home and the new struggles of parenthood meant really unearthing how I had and continued to parent my children. It meant looking at my own issues while my partner looked at his. We then had to meet in the middle- his career changes, the evolution of mine and the day to day support of three tiny humans as they began to navigate their world outside of the family home.
I loved the days when I knew they were safe. All home for dinner, all tucked up in bed after stories and kisses. I loved hearing about their escapades on the playground, the soccer field and at birthday parties. I hated the heartache of bullying, exclusion and the pressures of performing well that school placed upon them. Each day was a chance to cultivate their internal landscape by holding space for their emotions and loving them unconditionally. Reminding them that they were not their achievements on a daily basis became second nature. By the time they reached high school I began to feel it. I felt the gentle pulling away from us as they began to make bigger decisions, venture further from home and get into cars driven by their slightly older friends. Kisses and stories at night turned into texts of "I love you, have fun and do you have a key?" Later bedtimes for them meant attuned listening from their Dad and myself....car doors closing, lights being switched off and tip toes downstairs to count the shoes at the door. We too would fall asleep later and go over who had to be driven where to work, who needed picked up at what time and how would we get them to Driver's Ed while managing our work schedules. Parenthood is a juggling act...dividing and conquering, feeling the pull away and managing the ever changing demands of the bigger and bigger life decisions. In the midst of this juggling act, coming back together as partners is imperative. I am a firm believer that we grow up right alongside our children. Like children, we all grow at different rates. What we can hope to do is parent on the periphery...and be okay with that.
As my youngest two children prepare to enter their last year of post secondary education I am fully cognizant of what is once again changing. I feel like my partner and I have active parenting intervals....we are sounding boards, launching pads, and yes, we still get night time cuddles. I have forgone many invites because this last year of having them all home is so.very.precious. I am perplexed by the lightning speed I have travelled to arrive at this point. Between work, school and their own relationships, we are part time parents. We now are figuring out this "parenthood." What we know for sure is this: loving them unconditionally is our job. It is not their job to love us. We have to keep showing up for them. We want to always be in their lives...so we have to continue working on ourselves and continue to grow as human beings. We know that you never "arrive" in parenting or parenthood. Call it what you will- a journey, a discovery, a path...once you arrive on the periphery, your heart will break open.
You are left with memories- good, beautiful and bad ones. You soften, you lean in to your own vulnerability and you give thanks. You are grateful to have had the honour of sharing space with and holding space for your biggest life lessons. Yes, it hurts to think of the nest being empty. I am already planning dinners when they will all come back home and we can catch up. I figure I will learn how to facetime just to see their beautiful faces and hear of their new adventures. Each day the pull away gets stronger. We are excited for them. We will still worry about them. We trust them implicitly. We are stocking up on Kleenex. We are ever so grateful and will be ever so lost without them in our daily lives. We will stay on the periphery and learn how to be comfortable there.... watching them grow and loving them all the more from that wee bit farther away.