Parenting is a sticky wicket.

You do the absolute best you can with the tools you have from your own experience, and the results are still a bit of a crapshoot. Children, unfortunately, don't come with guarantees. They don't turn out like you imagine, they turn out like they turn out, like they're divinely intended to come out.

Hopefully, you've installed enough programming in them that they will be decent, caring, thoughtful creatures and not selfish, ignorant, nasty ones. Hopefully.

I parented in the "I'm proud of my honor student" bumper sticker generation. (I never had one, because we homeschooled, but they were EVERYWHERE.) We wore our pride in our children's ability to read before their peers, their report cards, their sports achievements, their scholarships, etc., on our bumpers for all the world to see. And judge.

I homeschooled mine... so, yeah... that's how that works.

My children are all ADULTS now.

That's a tough pill to swallow sometimes, but they are, even when they try to play the guilt card (I know where they picked that up!) and tell me they need me to feed them. Sometimes I wish I could still stuff them into their footie pjs and put them to bed, knowing they are too short to turn the doorknob and escape, but those days are over.

For my own mental health, I've had to start referring to them as "my adults" instead of "my kids" because they're all grown up. It's a transition.

Do they always make choices I approve of? No.
Do they do dumbass stuff sometimes? Yes.
Do I always agree with them? No.
Do I always love them. YES.
Will I help them if I can? Absolutely.

It's NOT unhealthy or abnormal or unusual to have kiddos that turn into adults who don't resemble anything we thought we raised.

What IS unhealthy is to continually strain and strive and struggle to change them, to turn them into something we think they should be, instead of letting them become who they are destined to be.

Parents, let your fledglings fly. Don't hold them back. Don't tether them with guilt and fear and all YOUR unresolved baggage. LET THEM FLY.

Emotional tears ruin disposable contacts. Just FYI.
What is prompting this contact lens melting tearfest? Children.


My oldest is expecting her fourth child sometime in the next six weeks. You'd think I'd be accustomed to welcoming a new grandbaby and watching my only daughter go through the process, but there's still a lot of fear and worry and anxiety involved.

My oldest son left today on "an adventure." That means he's hitchhiking his way through the southwestern states. This, he says, is a "short trip." It's something he's always wanted to do, which none of us understand, but my ancestry research indicates it may be a genealogical aberration he inherited. While I blubbered last night over his impending departure, he came in and explained all the research he's done, all the thought he's put into this journey, and today he posted a Mark Twain quote to mark the start of his walkabout. How can I argue with that?

My middle son got married last weekend. It was a beautiful wedding, I love his new bride, and I'm so proud of the man he has become. I very nearly didn't make it through our mother-son dance at the wedding without a complete come-apart. They flew to Jamaica today for their honeymoon. (Yes, I live-tracked their flight on the Internet from take-off to landing... I have a problem.)

My youngest is a senior in high school and is playing football for the first time. He's first string on defense, offense, and special teams. I'm ridiculously proud, and afraid I won't be able to watch him play the same way I wasn't able to watch him wrestle last year because it triggers horrible anxiety attacks. They should sell booze at those events for the paranoid parents.  

To sum it up, I'm a stressed-out mommy, despite lots of prayer.

Maybe it's because I had them so close together, or because I homeschooled them, or because we lived in a rural area and they were home, with me, ALL THE TIME, but this transition to adulthood is hitting me hard. About as hard as weaning them was the first time around, only this time it's harder on ME. I don't remember it being hard to wean my babies... they basically weaned themselves, or they got teeth, and that was the end of it. Bite me more than once, I cut off your food supply, pretty simple. They were all late teethers, so they all nursed for at least six months. Kiddo #2 for almost a year.

We once had cattle-ranching neighbors. Every year we would hear horrible, heart-wrenching sounds of distress from across the road. When I asked what was going on, I was told the mother cows were bawling for their calves, who had been separated from them for the first time. (The calves, I suppose, were just fine.) This wailing continued for several nights and was loud and distressing enough to make me close our windows despite our lack of AC.

Today, I'm that momma cow... wailing for her young'uns. Wishing they were all back home, wearing their footie jammies and small enough to pick up and cart off to their beds for the night.

The second weaning is for the mother, and it's much more difficult than the first weaning.

It may come with a kid going to college, getting married, heading to the mission field, moving out to his/her own apartment, or going on a "walkabout." But it will come. It's normal, and natural, and healthy. So is childbirth. Unfortunately, no one is hanging around offering me an epidural.

I know I'm not alone in this season. I also know there aren't any instructions, manual, or game plans for this stage. There are no Dr. Spock or "What to Expect" guides for us. It makes it extra difficult.

So, for all you mommies and daddies who dropped off a baby at college with fear and trembling, put one on a plane for a missionary journey or an educational course, kissed one and passed them into marriage, watched one head off for basic training in the military, helped one cart furniture into a third floor walk-up, or hugged one good-bye before he tromped off with his backpack and longboard, all alone, into the wide, wide world... I'm with ya. I'm praying for yours, and I hope you'll pray for mine. May they find their way, may God lead them into His best and highest for their lives, may they find favor and grace and mercy wherever they go.

And may we, their parents, not get stuck in this limbo-land between the season of parenting and the season of LIVING. May we find our way into OUR next seasons as easily as our children find their way. Don't cling to what was (or worse, what you wish had been). Look forward... what's next for YOU??? What do YOU want to do???

After considerable discussion with friends over the past month, I've decided the following books desperately need to find their way to bookshelves and e-readers...


I remember receiving my pubertal guide (one of the earliest kid-friendly puberty books, published in 1975), Peter Mayle's now-classic "What's Happening to Me?" at the age of 12 or 13. Since then, Lynne and Area Maderas have introduced their "What's Happening to My Body" series for boys and girls, explaining the mysteries and concerns faced by pubescent teenagers.

Now, at 43 and in surgical menopause, I'm watching my friends and loved ones attempt to navigate the treacherous emotional, physical, and mental waters that surround mid-life for women and men, and I think we desperately need an updated version. We were, after all, pretty much the first generation EVER to be really open and honest and forthcoming about puberty, shouldn't we be the first generation to be open and honest about mid-life?

Women are trained from menarche to prepare for menopause. No, we aren't very well prepared for the decade or so of perimenopause that precedes it, but most of us have watched (in open-mouthed horror) our mothers, aunts, or sisters, undergo "the change" and have some idea of what's about to happen to us. Even if we approach it with the kind of white-knuckled, jaw-clenched attitude with which we approach a new roller coaster ride, we're at least READY to go crazy.

Not so for men. There's all kinds of research that indicates the male of the species also undergoes a mid-life transition similar to menopause... Call it "man-on-pause" or "andropause" or "mid-life crisis" or whatever you want, men need to be prepared to deal with a physical, mental, and emotional transition at mid-life, because it's coming. Sadly, they are even less prepared than women for "the change," and as wives and women, we aren't prepared either.

Book #2 we need...


Parenthood and Adulthood are two entirely different neighborhoods.

Even if you were a bonafide adult when you HAD children, the season of parenthood is something entirely different than adulthood. (Note: We probably need a book for pre-parenthood that outlines the differences.)

Parenthood is a selfless season—regardless of what chronological age you enter it—marked by putting aside one's personality, individuality, needs, desires, sleep, and privilege of peeing and pooping alone. Adulthood, by contrast, is a very selfish season, in which one is (or is supposed to be) free to pursue one's interests, desires, and dreams without consideration for anyone else's needs. Of course, add in a bit of insecurity, some codependency, and a dash of financial lack, and a large percentage of American "adults" have never actually enjoyed the freedom of "adulthood."

Whether entering adulthood for the first time (for those who jumped into parenthood with both feet before ever enjoying adulthood) or returning to adulthood after a season of parenting, this period is fraught with undocumented dangers which are frighteningly similar to the dangers faced in puberty. However, without forewarning, we run the risk of tumbling headfirst into those dangers because we think we're "grown-ups" now.

So, I either need to get busy writing, or someone else does...