My kids are grown-ups, young adults with their own living spaces, life routines, and plans for their future but the parenting hasn’t stopped and neither has their dependence. Not that it’s the same kind of parenting I occupied myself with while they were young and still living in our family home, but parenting it is, nevertheless. I am not the only parent who feels this way because I see it happening to my friends and colleagues. And, not just in this country, but globally. Young people nowadays face much higher living expenses and comparably lower wages than my generation encountered when we spread our wings.
Young people want their independence like their parents did at that age but moving out, being able to afford a car, health insurance, and still have enough to eat is a struggle for many. My children seem to lean more on us parents than my generation did, if not financially than emotionally. Of course, technology has made staying in touch ridiculously easy, but did technology turn us into slaves or masters? I tell myself that knowing my children’s whereabouts and many details of their lives gives me peace of mind but sometimes I wonder if the phrase, “What you don’t know cannot hurt you“, might be another option. It served me fine when I was young and traveled the globe without my family knowing much of my whereabouts.
At the moment, I have two daughters in two different countries, and we touch base, no matter how short, almost every day. When I was their age and traveling frequently, I would call my mom once a month with a collect call from a phonebooth in the country I was traveling through. My own mother’s heart cannot even imagine the horror! If I would have to endure not hearing from my children for a month, not knowing if they were okay, the stress would be intense. Parents like me have allowed some of this prolonged parenting and dependency with the assistance of the Smart Phone.
Although I see that I was more self-sufficient in my early 20s and made my decisions aided mostly by intuition and peer’s advise, my kids do amaze me. They are outgoing, well-traveled, aware of politics, full of dreams and possibilities for their lives, have a solid group of loyal friends, and are not afraid to go after what they want. So, why do I feel like I failed to teach them something?
Society changed since I grew up and that is not something most parents like me had much control over. But, did we shelter our children too much from pain and mistakes instead of letting them fall and crawl back up? So either we did, and we’re still trying to fix and straighten their upbringing here and there, or we didn’t and it’s too late. Time will tell. As a parent, you probably never feel like you did enough, because what defines enough? In the end, it’s probably me who isn’t ready to cut the umbilical cord and is willing to let it stretch into eternity. Either way, they will always be my babies no matter how old they’ll get.