Since I’m in the habit of saying things here that I would never say outloud because I know people will judge the bejeezes out of me – why not continue the trend? Today’s subject as I drive towards my child who’s been away for a week with his cousins: Parenthood.
For those of you just tuning into my life, bringing my son home was an agonizing 10 year ordeal. A year of trying, followed by years and multiple medical interventions to try to figure out what was going on, followed by some unconventional means of trying to get pregnant, followed by an it-was-so-early miscarriage that the doctor said I didn’t even get to call it that (you likely won’t be surprised to know that she is no longer my doctor), followed by years of waiting for an adoption referral, followed by having to go to battle for almost two years to get my son home…… ordeal is the only word to describe it.
After all that you may think I’d be one of those moms that can’t stand to be away from her kid for even a day. I know people like that, go away to a conference for 3 days and they’re on the plane home genuinely desperate to get home and see their children. That is not me.
Don’t get me wrong, I love my kid. But when he’s at the beach with Oma and Opa or in Jersey with his Aunt and Uncle for a week I don’t feel any need to call and talk to him. I’m there in a second if he misses me and wants to talk. But guess what – he doesn’t.
I think there are a lot of people out there who would look at my lack of need to talk to my kid for 7 days as unnatural, as proof that I’m an unloving mother. Maybe that I’m selfish. And sometimes I do worry about that, cuz my brain loves nothing more than making me feel guilty. But when I’m not letting my brain mess with me, I know it’s actual healthy and the best thing I can do to raise a strong, independent son. He loves me and I love him, but we don’t need to be connected at the hip to prove we love each other. He doesn’t have to be homesick to prove I matter to him, and I don’t have to wither and die when he’s away to prove I’m a good mom.
And here’s my next, even more shocking confession. I love my son more than anyone else in the world — except for my husband. Again, I can hear the disapproving gasps and condemning looks. But I still maintain the way I feel is healthy.
I love my kid, I always will and I will always be there when he needs me, even once he’s grown. But the person I share my life with is my husband. Someone asked he and I recently what the secret was to us still being together and so happy after almost 21 years, and I think the fact that he is the most important thing to me, and I to him, is the answer. And I don’t think that makes me incapable of giving my son all the love he needs.
So many couples look at each other after the kids leave and go – what now? What am I supposed to do now that the loves of my life have moved on to their own life? So many marriages break up, or at least fall into a sort of apathetic resignation at that point. And worse is when the desperation to keep what they’ve poured all their love into makes those parents incapable of giving their children the space to live their own life, when it turns into an unhealthy, smothering tether of guilt for their kids.
My child will grow up, and the people he will love most in his life, the people he will put above absolutely everything else in his life will not be me, and that is how it should be. That is the loving, dedicated husband and father I am raising him to be. That is my gift to him as his mother.
And when my son has a life of his own, I will ever so happily enjoy visits from him, and eventually from any potential grandchildren; but I will do so in my husband’s arms, and live the rest of my life feeling completely fulfilled.