Home for Good

“It’s 7 pm on a Tuesday night.  He’s been home less than 24 hours. And by the way, that's your table in the picture,” I texted my friend Angela.

“The boys felt incomplete without him,” she answered.

“I didn’t.”

“LOL. I know exactly how you feel.”

I’ve never had a kid move back home after college. I lucked out with the daughter who took a Teach for America job in New Orleans immediately after graduating. She’s threatened, but never moved back home.

Once the youngest went off to college two years ago, I became a part-time mother, which suits me just fine. Most of the year is free from fretting and flipping out, because I only do that when they’re in my physical space. Sure, I get mildly concerned with the “I didn’t realize if you fail a class it gets averaged into your GPA,” or the the “I never knew they doubled your fine if you didn’t pay a parking ticket,” or the “I have to have my original birth certificate by tomorrow, are you sure you gave it to me?” calls.  But, mostly I can let things roll off my shoulders.

When they’re home, it’s a whole different story.

My middle child went to California for college. He has highfalutin tastes and knows not to even ask for help in purchasing hundred-dollar jeans. Or over-priced hair products. He always worked multiple jobs while in school so he didn’t have to alter the lifestyle to which he had somehow become accustomed. Working multiple jobs meant less time home between semesters and in the summers. So I really haven’t seen much of Max in the past four years.

And I’ve learned I can put up with a lot when I know there’s a plane ticket dangling in the not-so-distant future.

I love Max. He’s fun. He’s a hard-worker. He’s smart. He’s independent. He’s a people-pleaser. And I like to be pleased.

Maybe he won’t eat leftovers, but he doesn’t complain about it either. He just quietly picks up and goes to Victor’s for pizza. He leaves the toilet seat up, but I’m so used to falling in the toilet bowl in the middle of the night that it doesn’t even make my list of minor annoyances. He takes the car that he and his brother share without asking, but he fills up the tank. He drinks too much of my Diet Coke, but he does the grocery shopping for me. He loves my tacos, the dog and most of all, his friends. But he loves me, too. He even put it in print.

So, I was not as worried as one might think at the prospect of him returning home.

He graduated in May but was finishing up a class and a job so didn’t come home until Monday night.

 

For good.

“I donated five bags of clothes to Goodwill,” he announced after dragging multiple suitcases into his room. The room that had become the family closet in his absence. The room that I spent two days cleaning so he’d have a place to sleep. The room that still houses a twin-sized bed in which his six-foot-three frame unfolds every night. The room that you can no longer see the floor, so completely covered it is with his California stuff.  And will be for several months.

“You going out with your friends tonight?” I asked when he got home around 10 on Monday night.

“Nah. Think I’ll just chill tonight.”  

Music to a mother’s ears. 

 “Why don’t you apply for some JOBS?” the father gently suggested.

“Don’t worry, Pops,” Max answered. “I got this.”

Max slept late on Tuesday morning which was fine with me.

My desk is set up in the front window on the first floor in an open nook adjacent to the living room. I look out onto the front yard where I get a ringside view of the fluttering birds, blooming flowers and neighbors, as they come and go. My kids park their car right smack in front of my desk so I’m always forewarned when my peace is about to pass all understanding.

I love my home office. But there’s no door. No sound barrier. No privacy. Which is why, when another human being steps into the main floor of the house, I lose concentration and revert into mom mode. I offer everything from sandwiches to advice with a little laundry in between. The reasoning is, if I take care of all their needs before they ask (which they may or may not do), I can get back to work.

That, “Maaaaaahhhm,” out of any of their mouths is a trigger. One I can’t ignore. Which is why I ignored the need to make money for far too long.

But for the past couple years I’ve been back in the saddle, crafting words into dollars to help pay the bills. I have my routine and it works. Until they come home. 

On Tuesday afternoon, less than 24 hours after the prodigal son returned, I heard the unmistaken boom, boom, boom of a radio turned  up way too loud, half a block before the old, gold Acura pulled up out front. I finished typing a sentence, took a deep breath and watched Max and three of his friends barrel out of the car, into the house.

“Hey, Miss Betsy!” they greeted me as kindly as they ever had. These are the same old friends who have been in and out of my house for a decade. The same old friends who all flew out to his graduation in May. The same old friends who look at me with their big brown eyes when I call them out on anything as absurd as not wearing their seat belts.

“Oh, we just unhooked them when we pulled onto your road,” they said, almost in unison.

They piled onto the back deck and I made an attempt to go back to work. After all, these were grown men now. I didn’t have to offer them penne vodka anymore. They’d just as soon have it straight up. 

 “BRB,” Max said as two of them darted through the house and out the front door.

“Where you going?” I couldn’t help but ask.

“To Kris’s to pick up a table.”

A table?

Fifteen minutes later, with the arrival of Susie, the backyard had been successfully transformed into a Beer Pong arena.

I simply went back to my desk and texted my friend Angela to commiserate.

The Beer Pong tournament ended before it got dark and they dispersed by Uber to parts unknown. When I got up for a bathroom visit at 3:23 am, Max still wasn’t home. But I heard his air conditioner rumbling behind closed doors when I rolled out of bed at 8.

My spouse, who left home at 18 and, except for a summer or two, never lived there again, has mocked me mercilessly for moving in and out of my parents’ house until I was 26 years-old. And now that I have kids dangerously approaching that age, 26 doesn’t seem as old nor independent as it should.

“They didn’t mind,” I tell him. “I was never home.”

Kind of like Max.

I have since learned that a friend is coming from LA next week when the father and I are away.

“Oh, too bad,” Max said. “I wanted you to meet her.”

“Oh, I will,” I said. “We’re not going to be gone long.”

And, I’m certainly not going to tell you exactly when we’re leaving and when we’re returning, either. That much I learned in Parenting 101.

I also learned that he will be throwing a welcome home party for himself next Saturday.

“Don’t worry, Mom,” Max said. “I’ll pay for the keg.”

The Next Great Generation is Here

“Want to hold him?” Deirdre asked in the midst of a backyard graduation party on Saturday. One with free-flowing liquor, I might add.

I gulped. I really did. Then figured if she trusted me with her one month-old first-born, who was I to question her judgment?  And so, I cradled that teeny tiny baby boy in my arms, and soon  realized I wasn’t going to drop him. Some things you don't forget, no matter how many years it’s been.

When I had my first baby, I believed, and rightfully so, that everyone in the world knew more about child rearing than I did. I tried to hide my uncertainty behind bold moves that included taking my newborn to a crowded restaurant days before her umbilical stub broke off, handing her off to any stranger who was willing to hold her and hiring an 18 year-old babysitter, who I interviewed for no more than thirty seconds, to be her surrogate mother when I went back to work.

I have always parented by two basic principles: what would keep me out of the headlines and public opinion. I would defer to my spouse if one of them needed stitches, Tylenol or a trip to the doctor. That way I could always blame him if, God forbid, anyone accused me of over-reacting.

Instead, I tended to under-react. When my kids turned ten, their adventurous aunt who, with no children of her own, knew less than I did, took them on a trip – anywhere in the world they wanted to go. The daughter chose Australia, the middle one went bicycling through Italy and the youngest boated down the Amazon River.

“You’re letting a ten year-old go on a plane, to another country, without you, even after what happened on 9/11?”

“Yeah, why not?”

One year I sent my middle one to a sleep-away camp in its inaugural and very bare-bones season because I didn’t want to hurt the founder’s feelings. I walked away with the worst trepidation I’d ever felt in my parenting career. But I walked away.

I sent my 15 year-old daughter off on an unaccredited and only somewhat vetted trip to China because I had a girl crush on a mother who said it was a great opportunity.  

I let my kids go to post-prom parties and weekends in Wildwood knowing exactly what was going to transpire. I let the middle one drive across the bridge into Manhattan the day he got his license and the youngest drive four hours to Boston in a “new” car with over 180,000 miles on it.

I let them swim right after they ate, go outside without jackets and play violent video games. I put them in over-populated cars to baseball tournaments 800 miles away and sleep in six-to-a-room hotels. I let them play basketball in the heart of Harlem, the bowels of the Bronx and in questionable parts of Queens. I never once called another parent to ask if they were really going to be home during the party. And I always said yes to water parks, road trips and late-night Fright Fest at Six Flags.

By the grace of God, my kids survived. They continue to travel, seek adventure, live in faraway places and do things they probably shouldn’t. Luckily, they’re all hale and hearty and happy that I didn’t hold them back.

But, it wasn’t because I was an easy-going mom. I harbored a whole lot of inner (and outer) anxiety over my parenting decisions, all because I was so afraid of what people would think. For whatever reason, it was always more important for me to be perceived as over-permissive than over-protective.

There’s nothing mothers like better than imparting their infinite wisdom to those who are new to the game. And so, while baby Connor got passed around faster than the hors d’oeuvres last Saturday afternoon, Michelle and I (and others who popped in and out in between Moscow Mules), shared the secrets of our many parenting successes, while consciously downplaying our many mistakes. And believe me, it's really easy to see the difference when your kids are twenty years out of diapers. 

 Deirdre and Bobby have that new parent glow that toggles between utter adoration and sheer exhaustion. They listened and laughed as we seasoned mothers made fun of ourselves. And because my kids made it through somewhat unscathed, I felt I had earned the right to taunt these brand-new parents. After all, young parents are the absolute worst -- helicoptering and hovering far more than we ever did. I did my best to horrify them with my child rearing philosophies, both past and present.

“I bottle fed so the father could experience the joy of a 2 am feeding,” I confessed.

 “Me too,” Deidre said. “I pump.”

“Really?” I said, baffled. I thought every baby in this new generation came out glued to their mama’s nipple, not to be pried away until pre-school. With that, she tossed a bottle to my eagerly-waiting spouse so that he could relive the joy of feeding a baby.

"I never sterilized a bottle in my life,” I added.

“Oh, I don’t either,” Deidre confessed. “After all, the minute you touch it, it’s no longer sterile.”

“We got our first babysitter when Molly was a week old,” I said, sure that I'd raise an eyebrow with that one. “I guess you haven’t left Connor yet?”

“Sure we have,” Bobby answered.

"Wow. He's only what, 40 days old?"

"No, 36."

“You have absolutely no problem with people touching your baby,” I observed.

“Builds up the immunities,” Deirdre chuckled and I smiled, recalling the passing off of our first-born, three-day old baby to the mailman.

As Connor let out a big belch over my spouse’s shoulder, Deirdre's parents swooped in.

“We were just in the neighborhood,” her mom said. 

Deirdre smirked. My spouse handed the goods over to the grandfather. 

“Dad!” Deirdre shrieked. “He’s falling asleep!”

“Oh, let him sleep,” maternal Michelle crooned. “He looks so peaceful.”

“You can’t let him sleep!” I piped in. “You have to keep him on a schedule.”

“That’s right!” the new parents agreed. “Otherwise, we’ll never have a life!”

“I used to keep a little notebook to record every time my babies ate. I had them on a four-hour schedule and let them scream their heads off if it wasn't time to eat. Every now and then I’d cheat and give them a bottle 15 minutes early. But then I lied in the notebook. As if anyone would ever know. Or care."

“Oh, Betsy!” Michelle admonished.

“Look what I have!” Deirdre said, pulling out her phone to show me the app she used to record Connor's feedings.

At 7:00, Bobby and Deirdre dutifully said good night and headed home to begin the bedtime ritual with their newborn baby.

“I’m shocked!” I said later to my daughter. “I can’t believe what good parents they are!”

“What do you mean?” she asked. “Of course they’d be good parents.”

“I’m just surprised they're so calm. They treat him like he's the third kid, not the first. They pass him around like a hot potato. They let him cry. They aren’t worried about germs and drunks and I don't know, they're just so un-overprotective."

“But Mom,” the daughter said. “That’s the way you were.”

“Yeah, but, look how you turned out.”

I got that old familiar eye roll and smiled. 

Because I've been in this parenting thing long enough to know that even if I did things for the wrong reasons, it was because there was always something about it that felt right. And while I certainly didn't come close to doing everything right, my rights outweighed my wrongs.

Deirdre and Bobby will surely make their child-rearing mistakes and may from time-to-time be scorned by been-there-done-that parents and peers. But they're going to do it with love-filled hearts, open-minded souls and probably a whole lot of prayer. 

And that will make all the difference. 

Welcome to the world, Connor. You're one lucky fellow!

The Beauty of Long Distance Parenting

“Mom! Going to Jazz Fest. They’re literally calling for a monsoon!” the daughter texted from New Orleans this spring.

“Great! Have fun!” I responded, and turned my attention back to the Words with Friends game in which I was finally beating the mostly unbeatable Tom Shea.

Sure enough, it poured.   

“MOM! I ALMOST DROWNED! Don’t you care??” the daughter text-screamed that evening.

“No.”

After all, almost is the operative word. 

“Mom!” the middle child shrieked on a rare phone call in April.  “I think I have bed bugs.”

“That’s nice, dear. Make sure you rid of them before we come for graduation,” I said and turned the volume up on The Voice.

“Mom!” my youngest texted the day after the 30-inch blizzard this winter. “I don’t have any boots or gloves."

I didn’t respond.

It took me many, many years, but I have finally found my parenting niche. What I excel at. What I enjoy. What I have perfected. 

Parenting from a distance.

When my kids are away from home, whether it’s across the country, out of the country or just halfway down the turnpike, I am the parent I have long aspired to be. The kind who can parent without heart palpitations and sweaty palms. The kind who allows their kids to feel a little bit of discomfort. Cook their own omelets. Call AAA for themselves, for the third time in a month. The kind who believes in the power of learning that actions have consequences -- whether it's forgetting a key and getting locked out of an apartment or forgetting to take the smelly trash bag out before leaving for Spring Break.

I think of my kids with fondness when they’re away. I take pride in their independence. Their fortitude. Their courage. And their character.

When they're not around, I never, ever fear for their safety, let alone their well-being. I assume I’ll hear if something happens. And if it does, my biggest worry is that the authorities won’t wait until morning to call. As a matter of fact, until I recently started playing Words with Friends into the wee hours, I not only left my cell phone downstairs charging in the kitchen, but turned off the ringer on my bedroom phone. 

When my kids are away from home, I don’t think about what they are eating or if they remember to turn off the stove when they’ve finished cooking. I don’t wonder what classes they’re taking, or if they’re even going to class. I don’t care if they drink too much, stay up too late or fight with their friends. 

 They live their life. I live mine. They show their love with an occasional emoji and I show mine through Venmo. 

 But, inevitably, they come home and all that parenting progress I’ve made crashes and burns.

The daughter was coming home for a brief stint a couple weeks ago before traipsing off to Ecuador. Her flight was delayed so many times because of imperceptible weather conditions that it ended up taking her 24 hours to get home.

“Mom!” she texted when she finally got to Chicago and learned her connecting flight was canceled. “Should I get a hotel room?”

“No,” I answered. “Put your head on your bag and sleep on the floor.”

Two days after her sleepless night in the airport, she went off to the Governors Ball, which has nothing to do with Andrew Cuomo, let alone Chris Christie. It’s a three-day musical festival in New York City featuring a wide-range of performers. Most I've never heard of, but one I saw on Keeping up with the Kardashians. Since we’re just a stone’s throw from the city, the daughter mostly took public transportation in and out. I say mostly, because she conned the father into a ride or two. After all, paying for tolls with our EZ pass is way preferable to pulling out one’s own Metro Card. 

The forecast was for rain.

I left her snacks on the kitchen counter and pummeled her with angst-induced questions. I asked her what shoes she was going to wear and if she cared if they got muddy. If she thought she'd be too cold in a sleeveless top. If she would leave when it rained. And I even asked her if she wanted a plastic bag for her phone.

I have to give her credit. Now that she’s twenty-four, the eyes don’t roll quite so far back into her head. And she's better at biting her tongue. Rather than ridicule my ridiculousness, she merely responded with a request for cash, just in case the debit card didn't work. 

Being on home base rather than her usual 1313 miles away, I envisioned her alone and abandoned in a field in the midst of a lightning storm while the last of the soggy riders stampeded onto the (cash only) ferry. So, I dug deep in my pockets and gave her every dollar I had.

The youngest, who has turned into the most rebellious of the trio, is home for the whole, long summer. He is out most nights till well after 3 am. I don’t know what he’s doing, nor do I want to know, but I leave the hall light on. That way when I wake up every hour on the hour, I will know when he has made it home alive.

I ask him multiple times a week what time he's working and when. And on the days he has to be there early, I always, always wake up. I lie in bed straining my ears to hear if the shower goes on. And when I can no longer resist, I get up and go to the bathroom. On my way back to bed, I pause at his bedroom door and tell myself not to do it. But I do. Every time. 

I push open the door. 

“Don’t you have to get up?”  I ask in my most innocent voice.

“Mom. I don’t have to be there for a half-hour,” he grunts.

And uh, would it hurt to be on time? I think, but instead say, "Oh, sorry! I thought it was later than it is!"

Then I retreat back to my bed where I lie stiff as a board until I hear him pound down the stairs.

Somehow I forget that these kids manage to get themselves up all year long without me. Or maybe they don't. But I don't care if they're not under my roof.

I’m not bad as parents go. I’m really not. I never say no to anything. Not that my disapproval would make a difference to my of-age children anyway. I encourage them all to take chances, spend time with friends, seek out fun, try new things and never say no to an adventure. I feed them. I talk to them. On occasion, I will even defend them and their harebrained schemes when they're up against their ever-sensible father.

But when they're home, I just can't keep myself from reverting back to my poor parenting and barraging them with questions. Where did you go? Who was there? Do you need gas? Don’t any of your friends have to get up early for work? Did you eat breakfast? Do you want me to make you a sandwich to take to work? Did you clean your room? Did you check the air in your tires lately? Did you read that book your father gave you? Do you have your phone charger? Do you have a jacket? Do you have a water bottle? Do you know what time you’ll be home? Did you lose your razor? 

The only question they actually answer is, “Do you need any money?”

And somehow, I’m always surprised when the answer isn’t, “No, Mom. I make more than you do. I’m good.”

I love having my kids around. They're infinitely more interesting than they were as infants. More predictable than they were as toddlers. More pleasant than they were as teenagers. But, in oh so many ways, they're much more challenging now that they're grown.

In the olden days, our roles were clearly defined. I was supposed to worry. I was supposed to feed them. I was supposed to wake them. I was supposed to defend them. I was supposed to set limits and bedtimes and curfews.

Sharing a home with adult children is a whole different ballgame. Sometimes I'd love to go back to the days when I could strap them in the stroller or silence their screams with a pacifier. When I could trick them into going to bed early by setting the clocks ahead and keep them from going out at 11 pm. On a work night. I miss the days of being able to bribe them with candy, contain them with Disney movies and make them go to church.

Instead, I just have to hope that all that controlling didn't scar them for life. That wherever they go, whatever they do, that they do it with confident caution. That they listen to weather forecasts, traffic reports and their mother's advice.

And, that they'll remember to turn out the lights when they finally come home.

My Father's Daughter

“It was like being on a constant cringe alert, wondering what in the world might come out of his mouth next,” I said to my spouse-to-be, early in our courtship. “That’s what it was like growing up with my father. Can you imagine?” 

“Uh, yeah. I think I can,” he responded.

But he married me anyway.

My father was inappropriate, politically incorrect and firmly believed that his way was the right way, especially if it had to do with raking leaves, saving money or driving a car.

But he was also full of fun and mischief and a whole lot of love.

He loved my mother completely, though that's not really saying much as there is nothing not to love about my mother. She was a perfect wife. But maybe that's because she thought he was a perfect husband. Even if he made her cringe.

And he loved his children.

My father was a man’s man. A football captain. A basketball player. A baseball star. He was one of those men who was equally proficient in building a house as in building an ALPO dog food empire, both of which were key components of our cushy lives.

He didn't get a single son. He got four stinkin' daughters, one after another. But, he did the best he could with what he got. He coached Oreland Girls’ Softball for years and never hesitated to give one of his daughters the MVP award when we deserved it, or to take us out for long and tedious batting practice or pitching lessons when we didn't. He taught us all to play golf, to lick ice cream cones properly and that bathroom talk was never taboo. Not even at the dinner table.

Every time we went to a restaurant, and I do mean every time, my father would try to pawn us off.

“Which one of the girls would you like to marry?” he’d ask handsome waiters as we squirmed in our chairs.

He’d also had a habit of praising our accomplishments in a somewhat exaggerated manner.

“This is my daughter Nancy, she’s the president of Eagle’s Eye,” which was a clothing company where she worked at a level far from the top. Or, “Betsy’s a famous advertising writer. She makes $50 an hour,” back when $50 an hour was more than I could ever imagine making.

He bought us Yum Yum, an ice cream store in Flourtown, when we were in high school. We all worked there and got paid the same $1 an hour (plus tips)  as everyone else. But when all was said and done and Friendly’s bought us out, he handed each of his daughters a bank book in which he had doubled our wages.

My father went to Dartmouth College and took a hiatus to serve in the Navy. He was a war hero who was shot down in the Pacific but luckily lived to tell the tale. He was a brutally honest, morally rigid, fun-loving fellow who never cursed except for that one time when he dropped a bowling ball on his foot. He loved to travel, loved to play golf and loved to watch the Phillies from his green leather chair in the den.  

 

My father was a larger-than-life kind of guy. He loved entertaining people with his stories. He loved making people laugh. And he loved helping the underdog.

Whether it was a golf caddy, an aging waitress or the worst softball player on the team, he had a way of making them feel special. 

Like, my sister Emily, who to this day still believes she was the favorite.

But I know that can’t possibly be true.

Because, I was clearly the favorite. My father lovingly called me The Director because surprisingly, even back then, I had to orchestrate everything. He used to tell me that my mouth would get me in trouble one day. But in the same breath brag that I was just like him. He even wrote me a poem:

Dear Bet
 You are the best yet.

Just like Dad, you get mad.
But just as fast, you get glad.
Just like Dad.

My father was a complicated creature. You couldn’t always gauge his reactions. You couldn’t always understand his reasoning. And you could never, ever guess what was going to come out of his mouth next. 

But he was a father who was always present, always cherished and always putting his family first.

And no matter how many years he's been gone, he'll always be in my heart. In my soul. And in my big mouth.

So, friends and family, I do apologize.

I’m sorry that the rest of your days with me will be filled with cringe-worth moments. 

Yet, I can't help but thinking there's a whole lot worse things I could have become than my father's daughter.