The care and feeding of pre-adult humans

The care and feeding of pre-adult humans

I recently arrived home to find my son with a few of his friends in our kitchen eating what Eli referred to as “a snack.” In some ways, I could admire what was happening. I mean, my boy is a capable cook and he had thrown together what looked like a tasty egg dish for his friends. But to be honest, I felt a mild panic. The sheer volume of food being consumed tapped into my deeply rooted insecurity that we might actually run out. A brief inquiry revealed that this snack contained nearly a dozen eggs and several pounds of “leftover chicken” (in actuality, the chicken had been prepared for a dinner planned for the following night). A few terse remarks on my part belied my urge to yell, “We can’t afford to feed any more teenage boys!” The boys, perhaps sensing my alarm, responded by shoveling the food more quickly into their mouths before escaping to the basement.

Now that my kids are busy, independent teenagers, it sometimes feels as if I have no children at all. They are often out — at work, band practice, swim team, or hanging with friends. When they are at home, they generally hide in their bedrooms with the doors shut. But when they do show up, they are more of a presence then ever. They have strong opinions and huge appetites. They love to laugh, sometimes at our expense, but more and more, they seem to want to make us laugh too.

At 18 and 16, they seem to be phasing out of the tendency to believe that adults are boring and stupid. In fact, they often seek out our opinion about things. My daughter wants me to hear the new songs she likes. My son asks me to taste the food he makes. After several years of being disdained by them, I find myself vaguely astonished and somewhat flattered to realize they care about what I think.

Getting them to talk about their lives is still a bit of a challenge. With my son, the talking often happens in the car. I am teaching him to drive, so we have had more frequent opportunities than usual. Strapped into our seats, with our eyes on the road, it seems somehow easier for both of us to open up and chat about topics other than chores and logistics. With my daughter, who has been driving on her own for two years now, I try to catch her in bed either right before sleep or as she’s waking up. In that drowsy, half-sleep state, she sometimes lets her guard down and fills me in on what’s going on in her emotional world — hopes, sorrows, wishes and fears.

These kids are nearly grown. As I have been doing their whole lives, I realize that my job is to let the space between us grow a bit more — accept that they have lives apart from mine and secret thoughts and feelings that are none of my business. This seems straightforward. It’s what I’ve always known would happen. The thing that no one prepares you for is how painful it is. Even though they are, in many ways, competent and mature beings, they are still my children. When I look at them, I see layer upon layer of the experiences we have shared together and I don’t think I’ll ever be ready to let them go.