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.

Since people have been telling me for years that I was "40 in a 4-14-24 year old body" I didn't think turning 40 was going to be a big deal. I've kind of looked forward to it, embracing the idea of crossing a magic line where insecurity and fear and self-awareness issues would fall by the wayside.

I should have known there is no such thing as a magic line.


I find my mind drifting into these unproductive lines of thought like:

• "Have I actually accomplished anything of value?"
• "What do I want to do with the rest of my life?"
• "What's really important to me? What values define my life?"

Outside of those existential questions, I'm having even more pressing concerns:

• "Do I look like one of those women who is trying to cling to her youth by dressing like a teenager, piercing her nose, and putting a white-blonde streak in her hair?"
• "If I get a tattoo and trade in the Suburban for an Audi TT coupe, will everyone point at me and say, 'Oh, she's having a mid-life crisis,' and if they do, why do I care?"
• "Can I just do a total transformation and become, say, a granola-eating hippie type who goes barefoot and refuses to wear make-up?"
• "Does my husband think I'm a total lunatic? Is he as weirded out by my almost-40 year old physique as I am?"

I wouldn't call it a crisis, although I can certainly see how it could become one. Failing to acknowledge these thoughts and feelings as the cumulative product of cultural expectations, physical changes, and the stress brought on by dramatic, and rapid, shifts in family dynamics has the potential to run away with me.

After a month of unusual highs and lows, I've come to the conclusion that we, as a society, need to come up with a new way to go through mid-life. We need to embrace our ADULT years in healthy, productive and life-enhancing ways. (People actually do this all the time, we just don't hear about it.)
It's foolish to think a mid-life "crisis" is inevitable. It's equally foolish (and naiive) to believe that there will be no changes required of us during that time frame.

Instead of falling into a pit of blues and blahs about the aging process, feeling sorry for myself because I've yet to accomplish all my dreams, goals, and desires (if I had, what would be the point of continuing?), I want to face this transition with an attitude of hope and a positive outlook.

Transition is never comfortable. It's the absolute worst time of the whole labor and delivery process for most women. It's also not the time to freak out, lose focus, or quit. Instead, you keep yourself fixed on the idea you're almost to the good part! You're just about ready to meet the little person you've conceived and carried and developed for all that time.

So, who's the person about to be revealed in me? In my husband?

We can have a "life crisis" at any age or during any major change - graduation, getting married, becoming a parent, losing a parent, changing jobs, changing a lifestyle, moving to a new community, etc. It's up to us how we navigate the change.

We can make the transition with grace and allow ourselves to grow up into the person we were created and designed to be all along. Just think, the very best you imaginable is on the other side of that curtain. Aren't you ready to get to know yourself? After all, you've been "in research and development" all this time. Let's unveil the results!



Just for fun, some celebrities turning 40 this year include: Andre Agassi, Chris O'Donnell, Claudia Schiffer, Debbie Gibson, Ethan Hawke, Gabrielle Reece, Jason Lee, Jennifer Connelly, Joseph Fiennes, Kelly Ripa, Kirk Cameron, Kirk Franklin, Laura Boyle, Leah Remini, M. Shyamalan, Malcolm Jamal Warner, Martha Plimpton, Matt Damon, Minnie Driver, Mariah Carey, Queen Latifah, Rachel Weisz, Rick Schroeder, Tina Fey, Uma Thurman, Will Arnett and Vince Vaughn.