Ramblings from My Attic #114
Greater Truths
When Brooke was born I longed for the how-to manual. She was an early-bird, and Allen and I felt hopelessly inadequate in the day-to-day care of a preemie. But we managed. We were studious. Sixteen years later I feel that we have finally become experts in the care, feeding and nurturing of Brooke. Trouble is, she has downsized her staff and dismissed all but the banker and the chauffer (now relegated to the passenger side; even the chauffer’s days are numbered).
A slacker mom extraordinaire, I increasingly subscribe to the benign-neglect school of parenting. And somehow my kids still live. Bold, bright and beautiful, my daughters need me for so little now. Or so they think. I still get hit with questions plumbing Life’s Greater Truths:
Will a terrorist strike while we are at the inauguration?
Don’t know, but we’ll be together, and security will be massive (so massive it turns out we never made it to the actual inauguration)
Will I ever grow boobs?
If you don’t, you’ll always look awesome in spaghetti strap dresses.
Will I ever have a best friend again?
Yes.
(And now that she does…) What happens to best friendships when you go to college?
I followed my best friend to the college she chose and our best-friendship disintegrated by the middle of freshman year. College was great, but note to self – don’t share all your stupid mistakes with daughters.
Or the question texted one late afternoon to my co-worker from her 17 year old son: “Mom, I finished all of my broccoli. Can I go to [my girlfriend’s] house now?”
In the raucous tell-all of a book club retreat dinner one mom relayed a tale of not picking up teenage son’s clothes off the floor anymore and leaving him to do his own laundry. He then fumed through the house in his underwear to the laundry room, grabbed his pants off the floor, stomped back through the house not realizing that the dog had chewed out the back of them while they lounged on the laundry room floor.
Another co-worker was taken aback by an invitation to a young man’s wedding. Always self-effacing, she told this 20-something friend of her son that he really didn’t have to invite her. “Of course I do Mrs._____, I had my first sex in your basement!”
I guess we won’t always have the right answers but it sure is fun hearing what comes out of our mouths (often our mother’s voices) and theirs (definitely NOT our mothers’ voices).
