How To Stop Being Mommy
12 Jan 2017, 3:37 pm
I'm not saying I'm God's gift to mothering (ain't). I'm not saying my kids are my life (ain't).
But-- I've been Mommy since September 3, 2001. There have been little kids under foot, in varying profusion, for the last fifteen years of my life. The chaos and demands of motherhood in the trenches-- I've adjusted to it, that's my life.
It's also almost over. My first is 15, slowly getting ready to fly from the nest. The middle two are 9 and 7. They're pretty independent now. My last is 4. She will be starting school full-time soon. She might have some special needs, but not anything that's going to be all-consuming.
It's not like they're going to evaporate or anything. Three years from now, they'll be 18, 12, 10, and 7. When #1 flies the coop, I'll still have three little nestlings. Even after they're ALL moved out, well, it's not like I'm going to stop being their mother. We have a decent relationship (well, it's kind of rocky with the middle DD, but not awful). I know, too well, that almost-40-year-old women and men still want their mommy and daddy.
And my aunt says, as you get older, you actually WANT to stop parenting. Don't think she'd have much experience of what it's like to stop parenting, though. She's got a boomerang kid, two grandkids to half-raise, and a son and DIL right across the hill whose kids (one teen-aged, one 20) are also by her house just about every day. At the same time she says you want to stop at some point, she's always awfully glad if I call her up of a morning, because everyone else lives on the afternoon shift and she's always lonely.
So, I get that they're not going to be, like, POOF!! GONE!! But-- this is about the end of the clingy-desperately-needy time. The I-am-everything-to-them time. The parenting-consumes-my-very-soul time.
I'm scared. I'm sad. They haven't even started to fly the coop yet, and I'm grieving. I hear that stupid Simple Plan song (and I get it's a teenage-summer-love song) "I'd Do Anything," and I start bawling. Seeing them grow up in stop-motion clips and s**t. I'm like, "No. Wait. Stop. Wait for me!! Come baaaaaaack!!"
I'm not stupid. This is supposed to happen. This is the outcome you hope and pray for, the outcome you work for the whole time you're raising them. This is The Happy Ending. The optimum goal. It hasn't even happened yet. I still have three who are like, "I'm never leaving!! I'm never getting married!! I'm going to get a job and pay you rent and live at home forever!! I'm going to marry the kitten!!"
And I'm like, "Don't go!! Wait for me!! Come baaaaaaack!!"
I will always be their mother. But-- I have to start figuring out how to stop being Mommy. Because the Mommy Time is almost over. Mommy isn't going to be developmentally appropriate any more soon.
I've been Mommy for so long, I don't know how to let go (and I don't want to force them to pry themselves from my desperate, clutching hands, because I dated guys whose mothers did that, and the results were f*****g hideous). Saint Alan let me go with good grace and an open hand and a tear in his eye (and then he probably went in the house and bawled profusely and then got high). Saint Alan isn't here to teach me how to let go of my kids, or how to grow myself into something besides Mommy (because although it feels like I'm just going to crawl into my closet and shut down like an obsolete robot when Mommy Time is over, that's not really going to happen).
Any older Aspie ladies done it?? Wanna tell me how??
_________________
"Alas, our dried voices when we whisper together are quiet and meaningless, as wind in dry grass, or rats' feet over broken glass in our dry cellar." --TS Eliot, "The Hollow Men"
01 Feb 2017, 11:30 pm
But-- I've been Mommy since September 3, 2001. There have been little kids under foot, in varying profusion, for the last fifteen years of my life. The chaos and demands of motherhood in the trenches-- I've adjusted to it, that's my life.
It's also almost over. My first is 15, slowly getting ready to fly from the nest. The middle two are 9 and 7. They're pretty independent now. My last is 4. She will be starting school full-time soon. She might have some special needs, but not anything that's going to be all-consuming.
It's not like they're going to evaporate or anything. Three years from now, they'll be 18, 12, 10, and 7. When #1 flies the coop, I'll still have three little nestlings. Even after they're ALL moved out, well, it's not like I'm going to stop being their mother. We have a decent relationship (well, it's kind of rocky with the middle DD, but not awful). I know, too well, that almost-40-year-old women and men still want their mommy and daddy.
And my aunt says, as you get older, you actually WANT to stop parenting. Don't think she'd have much experience of what it's like to stop parenting, though. She's got a boomerang kid, two grandkids to half-raise, and a son and DIL right across the hill whose kids (one teen-aged, one 20) are also by her house just about every day. At the same time she says you want to stop at some point, she's always awfully glad if I call her up of a morning, because everyone else lives on the afternoon shift and she's always lonely.
So, I get that they're not going to be, like, POOF!! GONE!! But-- this is about the end of the clingy-desperately-needy time. The I-am-everything-to-them time. The parenting-consumes-my-very-soul time.
I'm scared. I'm sad. They haven't even started to fly the coop yet, and I'm grieving. I hear that stupid Simple Plan song (and I get it's a teenage-summer-love song) "I'd Do Anything," and I start bawling. Seeing them grow up in stop-motion clips and s**t. I'm like, "No. Wait. Stop. Wait for me!! Come baaaaaaack!!"
I'm not stupid. This is supposed to happen. This is the outcome you hope and pray for, the outcome you work for the whole time you're raising them. This is The Happy Ending. The optimum goal. It hasn't even happened yet. I still have three who are like, "I'm never leaving!! I'm never getting married!! I'm going to get a job and pay you rent and live at home forever!! I'm going to marry the kitten!!"
And I'm like, "Don't go!! Wait for me!! Come baaaaaaack!!"
I will always be their mother. But-- I have to start figuring out how to stop being Mommy. Because the Mommy Time is almost over. Mommy isn't going to be developmentally appropriate any more soon.
I've been Mommy for so long, I don't know how to let go (and I don't want to force them to pry themselves from my desperate, clutching hands, because I dated guys whose mothers did that, and the results were f*****g hideous). Saint Alan let me go with good grace and an open hand and a tear in his eye (and then he probably went in the house and bawled profusely and then got high). Saint Alan isn't here to teach me how to let go of my kids, or how to grow myself into something besides Mommy (because although it feels like I'm just going to crawl into my closet and shut down like an obsolete robot when Mommy Time is over, that's not really going to happen).
Any older Aspie ladies done it?? Wanna tell me how??
Teenagers, and sometimes young adults need just as much guidance as smaller children, just in a different sense. My mother decided that she was done parenting when I was 16. There were some positive results of this...I learned to fend for myself earlier than most people, but there were also some negative results. I had a good head on my shoulders, and was not inclined to make stupid decisions and ruin my life, but I struggled compared to others who had more parental guidance and support, and getting my adult life set up. I did not know what opportunities or programs were available to me, or how to find them. I did not have anyone to teach me to drive, and took years to come by the money to take formal lessons. I knew nothing about applying for colleges and had to figure all of that out on my own, and did not have the resources to visit the school I was applying to or accepted to before hand. Meanwhile, I had to compete with people with far more parental guidance and support than I had, and those individuals ultimately were more successful in life.
Your children's need for you as their mother does not change as they grow. The types of things they need from you change.
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