Failure to Lunch

As Brad and I sat waiting for our hot and sour soup to arrive at lunch yesterday, chatting about our adult daughter leaving the country and not bothering to give us any of the details, I had an epiphany. There was THE cutest couple sitting in the booth to my left, who had a baby (a GOOD baby), in a rocking carrier seat. It happened when the meals arrived. As the baby slept quietly, and the couple was enjoying their conversation, I noticed that they had ordered exactly the same meal as we had ordered. They reminded me of us when we began raising a family. I wanted to lean over and say, "Enjoy your children while they are young."

This was the same advice I had received from Tony Larussa, back stage at a rock show, when I was a stay at home mom. At that time, I felt I WAS enjoying that particular stage of life, and my kids too, because I was practicing Vipassana meditation regularly, and the practice alone helped me learn to focus on, and stay in, the present moment. At that time in my life, I thought that was what he meant. The present moment being all we have in the first place, so enjoying the kids when they were young, made sense to me that way. My interpretation was... live in the present moment, and enjoy their company and your process with them. 

But yesterday, and although I did not state those often repeated words to that cute couple in the next booth, I realized that at Tony's stage of life back then, the advice could have meant something entirely different. Because for me, yesterday at lunch, it did. He was probably my age back then, and he had adult children. He was likely reminiscing about raising younger children. So he delivered to me his advice. Now I know that, as they age, raising children gets harder and harder. Their problems in adulthood are epic by proportion. It's not even fair to compare them. When they are young, children are physically demanding, but when they are older, they are financially and emotionally draining, and their problems are adult problems.

As a young adult, one must make decisions about career, property purchases, life partners, and yes, even vacations. As the parent, one must sit back and allow the children to make these choices and decisions alone. We must endure the decision, even if we KNOW, it is a poor choice because that's how they learn. It's not our life. Try as we might, we can't make our adult children learn from our mistakes. Life simply doesn't work that way. 

Today I believe his advice meant this: enjoy children when they are young, because when they are adults, the problems are vastly different and to a greater proportion. When the children are young, the problems are more about health and well being, and generally coping with having playful, somtimes annoying, immature kids around. Parenting adult children is about letting go, and accepting their life choices that can make, or break, their happiness for years to come.