My friend Christine has a daughter who recently turned fourteen. I don’t have any children myself, but I’ve often listened to Christine complain about the difficulties of parenting—especially now that she is parenting a teenager. While I’ve always been able to sympathize with my friend’s woes, I’ve never been able to truly empathize… until now. You see, after my dad died suddenly and unexpectedly at the end of last year, I agreed to move back in with my mom for a few months to help her through the transition period. And, I kid you not, my seventy-one-year-old mother has turned out to be the teenage daughter that I never had.
Like my friend’s fourteen-year-old, my mother doesn’t know how to drive. So, like my friend, I have become the resident chauffeur. As a freelance writer, I don’t go to an office everyday, but I do work—every day. Recently, as I was busy at my laptop, Mom came into the room:
Mom: “I need to go to JC Penney.”
Me: “What?”
Mom: “I need to go to JC Penney. I need sheets.”
I looked at her. She reminded me of a teenager who needs something for school the next day but doesn’t bother to mention it until ten o’clock the night before.
Me: “Well… can’t it wait until this weekend? I’m under a deadline here.”
I swear—I saw her roll her eyes at me.
I know that it can’t be easy for my mother. She wasn’t much more than a teenager herself when she married my father. Just before his death, they celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of what really was a happy marriage. The most visible sign of my mom’s grief at his loss is her own recent weight loss. Like any other good parent, I try to get her to eat. Only, Mom seems to have developed the eating habits of a teen girl:
Me: “Are you eating more cookies?”
Mom: “So?”
Me: “So, if you’re hungry, I can heat up the chicken.”
I swear—I saw her roll her eyes at me.
Whenever Christine needed to vent her frustration or worry about her daughter, I always reminded her: she’s basically a good kid. So now, whenever Mom goes out without a coat, or takes forever in the bathroom, or refuses to go to bed and then falls asleep in front of the TV, I try to remind myself the same thing: basically, Mom really is a good kid.
But, am I a good parent? Well, if a parent’s job is to teach her child to be independent and eventually take care of herself, I’m already seeing signs. The other day, Mom went grocery shopping with another neighborhood widow. Sure, I worried about her getting into a car with a friend her age driving. But, you have to let go some time, right?
According to Christine, her daughter now likes a boy. The topic of dating has actually come up. Dating?! Oh, I don’t even want to think about it…
