Someone I know and love got in touch with me the other day. They asked me to connect up w. their kid, a young adult .like my two younger ones.
They said they loved them, but they couldn't be of help.
Parenting. Our own or others. It involves complications. Consequences. Of theirs, and of our own. It involves loving. Tackling problems and researching and making plans and connecting and getting help.
Now, years ago, I see that this was one more choice I made that eventually contributed to where I am now, unable to work. Hindsight, eh? Loving and caring, but urging and pushing and showing others how to take care of their own lives and kids.
So I said to this person I know and love, the other day, that when we have kids, it is hard.
We often need to find a way to provide that which we were never given, and at the moment, have no idea how to find or grow or provide.
We need to be there for them waaayyy into young adulthood,and sometimes, later.
We need to find our own way to do this, or there will often be a bigger mess. Tragedy. All kinds of crap.
I told them working hard to be as good a parent as you can be is often not altruism, either. It has a bit of not wanting to suffer..MORE. Which is what you circumvent, if you work hard as a parent and love truly and step right up.A whole lot of times, if you don't, you will end up suffering more...with the tragic mess that may come on down the road. And move into your neighborhood.
Once I was in a lawyer's office, for someone I love, for a serious crime.
That first day in the attorney's office, he said " We never see parents. They never show up. They're always so angry. There is always - always - a better future for the kid, if the parents show up."
Because younger people need help and love and support. Limits too, and listening, and then consequences. Encouragement. Your own faith, covering them like a blanket, until the time they manage to slowly grow their own.
Yeah, lots of us managed on our own, with our friends and partners, and no help from parents with any sanity whatsoever. Sure.
But normally? Its a dangerous swamp out there, coming up. And today? Has it's own newbie unique horrible complications. A shade different than the past.
Plus wages? You used to be able to work 20 hours a week at any old crappy job, and go to college. On a Pell Grant. That PAID for the tuition and your book. And then some. Noone had nice cars, or cell phones or nice clothes. But you all were starving students, having a good time, studying hard, going to work, sleeping late, burning out at midterms and finals.
Or you found a trade. In the family. Or some neighbor. Or lucked into something. That wasn't the best or easiest or best paying, but was fine. Fine.
Now? Hard to survive on two people sharing rent or mortgage or food or gasoline or a car. Never mind trying to have kids or go anywhere. At all.
So I told this person I know and love that I had retired from overreaching what I could pull off. I was done. I said they had to find their own way, no matter their pain or distress, to show up. Step up. And be there with that kid. Love that kid. Problem solve with the kid. I said it really had no bearing, whether the kid had 'found themselves' or not.
What is life, anyway? We find and lose and find and lose and find ourselves again and again and again. And truly, we all need a whole lot of help.
Then, there's the big secret. Right? The more well meaning and generous (but, try wise and judicious) and thoughtful you learn to be, the more well meaning and generous and thoughtful others will eventually be to you. Even when you need it most of all.
I said it wouldn't be fun. They wouldn't get any old thank you notes later.
But it is important to follow through..on the commitment we make when we have a kid.
In all sorts of ways. We can situate them with someone else, and know them peripherally, an important, loving and brave thing to do.
We can work as hard as we can on our own messed up crap before and during and after raising them, so we can show up as healthy and self-accepting and present as possible.
But we need to take the responsibility to do it. Because it's ours. And ours alone.
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