Parenting Grown Children: What Dr. Spock Forgot to Tell Us

Leaving a Legacy: A push to get our storytelling act together

I have been working on a memoir for several years--writing sections, taking breaks, losing heart, returning to the work.  Anyone who's tried crafting anything personal knows what I'm talking about: So easy to lose confidence and stall out. The memoir is about my career--a legacy for my grandkids so they can know the times and culture we (my generation) worked our way up and through.

This Mother's Day a gift from my daughter is setting me on a parallel legacy path. The gift is called StoryWorth. Naturally, since my daughter is of her generation, it's digital. I receive an email each week with a prompt for something to write about--the prompts chosen or posed by my daughter. After a year, all the essays (or a sentence or whatever I write) and any photos I add are collected into a "book." My daughter sees each "story" after I write it and can comment. 

What an experience. The first question: How did you feel when your first child was born?

I wrote about it this morning and I haven't yet returned from my trip down memory lane. Recalling that day--that moment in my life; the birthing practices of the time--and sharing details I had almost forgotten with my child and her family has left me feeling both weepy and joyful. She says she felt the same way when she read my remembrance--it was her birth, after all.

StoryWorth is only one means to an end. What a gift we give each other when we take the time to dig deep into our memories and share our stories. It's our most meaningful legacy to our children and their children. Why not be here to enjoy it.

painting: Matisse

Observation: The profound value of mothers to their adult daughters

 

As Mother's Day nears, what more touching message could we hear than this one from author Abigail Tucker via an e-newsletter from NYTimes staff editor, Sarah Wildman.

Only human females and a handful of long-lived whales have a lengthy life phase when reproduction ends and the time arrives to pitch in with the grandkids,” Tucker explains in the piece, which is adapted from her newly published book “Mom Genes: Inside The New Science of Our Ancient Maternal Instinct. This all-hands (or all flippers) approach to ensuring your genetic legacy apparently pays dividends.”It turns out that a grandmother’s help can have a profound impact on a new mother’s well-being, on the success of her pregnancy and even on how her children thrive.

During the pandemic, even those mothers who live close to their own mothers have often been forced to be distant. For many others — like me — who live hours apart, this time has caused us to reconsider why we don’t live close enough to continue to be mothered well into adulthood. It’s not just wishful thinking; as Tucker explains, there’s a science to our sense of need.

painting of mother and daughter: Berthe Morisot

 

 

 

Mother's Day, GrownKids and Guilt: Does anyone else dislike this "Day"?

I'm not sure what possessed me, but when I was a youngish mother of 'tweens I told my kids not to do anything for me for Mother's Day. It's not a day for me, I told them.  At the same time, it was a day when I had to call my mother and make sure the card and a gift were in the mail. Ditto mother-in-law.

Well, now I am the mother of mothers--my daughter and my daughter-in-law.  I still feel Mother's Day is not My Day. Now I see it as a day that's just a pain in the neck and a source of tension. It is such a struggle to be a mom today. I don't want my grownkids-mothers worrying about whether they sent me a card (the cards are too treacly anyway) or calling me because that's what you do on the second Sunday in May. I'd like to send them daily bouquets of flowers to  honor the job they've done so far. (They are a major reason I have such wonderful grandchildren, if I say so myself.)

I'm ambivalent about this holiday. I see it as a guilt-maker, as a day of emotional demands suggested and policed by outside forces. It's not as though it's a day specific to someone--like a birthday or a remarkable day in their life. 

I'm reminded of these queasy feelings by a Carolyn Hax column that appeared close to Mother's Day.

The Dear Carolyn writer, like me, seems to be pulled in many Mother's Day directions. Her story: When she was younger, she had  "felt the Mother's Day guilt of wanting to make my mother and mother-in-law happy." Now, she sees how overwhelming it is "for young mothers to be pulled in many directions" when it comes to dealing with Mother's Day.  Since she once felt that emotional workload, she has asked Carolyn, "What is the best solution for mothers of adult children with their own families? "

Here's part of Carolyn Hax's answer:

[You] can tell them that [your] Mother’s Day gift to them is an unconditional release from all obligations on Mother’s Day. Say you’d love to see them (if true), and will be happy to plan or play along or observe it on the day of their choice, or babysit so they can have time alone, or whatever else (if true), but you will not be a duty they have to fulfill.

To that I say Amen.

Here's a further point a reader made:

Don't just free them for Mother's Day. Do it for all the holidays.

Wouldn't you rather have a sweet phone call a week after the fact than hear, "Why didn't you call?" So would your children. The benefits are enormous for everyone. No worries, no guilt.

I give that another Amen. And a thanks for helping me feel less alone in my perverse reaction to Mother's Day--although I have good company in painter Mary Cassatt.

Here's this from the National Gallery expert on Cassatt::

When I curated the Gallery’s exhibition Degas/Cassatt in 2014, I learned that Mary Cassatt—known almost exclusively as the painter of motherhood—was dismissive when the idea of creating Mother’s Day was first proposed in 1913. As a staunch supporter of woman suffrage, she thought granting women the right to vote was a far more pressing issue than a single day celebrating mothers. Two years later, Mother’s Day was established by an act of Congress. Women had to wait five more years for access to suffrage, much to Cassatt’s disappointment.