For the past few summers, as Maple has been working more and more on the island and becoming more and more independent and capable in so many ways, I have found my role with her to be on the massive shift and requiring a higher “keep my eye on the ball” sort of focus. The past few summers I have felt myself shaping my plans and the texture of the family schedule around the events and adventures and opportunities and obligations of the big kids. They have gotten busier and I have needed to clear space in a different way to accommodate that busyness than I do during the year. It’s like inside of the independence and autonomy there has been this far greater need for invisible and somewhat ambiguous support structures. So I have been running support. So has Chris. It has been a little bit of a divide and conquer paradigm, with me and Freddy here in Maine with Maple for as much of the summer as we can be and Chris back home with Eid, making sure he gets to lacrosse most days and then eventually to camp.
One of the things that I began to get a sense of last summer, but am certainly learning this year in hi-def, is the way in which the kids still need my help in recognizing and establishing appropriate boundaries. Especially my eldest. Of course, I mostly am learning this through my failure to do so. Playing catch up as always to what parenting is asking of me in any given era, on any given day. Maple is working too much. Which on one level would be fine, is fine, save for the reality that she generally always has too much on her plate and does her very best to give her all to most of it. During the school year for certain, and for the past few years during summers as well. She is tired and tender and wondering when she will find rest. Will the three weeks that she has after launch and before the start of school be enough? She still has her summer AP work to get through in preparation for the year. And it is fine and she can do it as she generally always does, just tbd the toll it will take.
I am reminded of the parents of some kids that would babysit for Maple when she was quite small and how I thought it was so strange at the time the way they would swoop in for their children sometimes and say no to something on their behalf that the kid had already said yes to. I remember feeling annoyed and a little put out that they couldn’t just let the kid determine it for themselves or that their work ethic wasn’t up to my own particular standard. Like if your kid said they would do this thing for me then they need to stick to it and you as their parent need to make sure they do. Not tell me they can’t. Or some other sweet bullshit. And yes on one hand I do stand by my sense that many parents (myself included) can be far too precious about our children and end up doing them a significant disservice in an effort to shield them from the gore of life. But in these instances, I guess I just couldn’t know then what I am learning now, and hindsight is 20/20 and all the rest. My learning curve in this gig continues to be incredibly steep. Consider this my decade and half delayed apology. Whoops. Yet again.
There is this other piece to all of this growing awareness around building appropriate boundaries and self-advocacy and young adult independence. Not exactly the elephant in the room, but certainly a growing presence. Maple is headed into her senior year. And whether it is her last year at home or not, it is her last year as a child in our house. As I dance with the dynamic of how and when to push and how and when to protect, supporting her… supporting and loving her while at the same time completely clueless about how to care for myself through this shattering that is happening inside of me. I don’t want to be too dramatic about it. It is the progression after all. Where we have been headed since we first read that positive pregnancy test. But holy fuck I am breaking. That’s normal, right? Like I am enjoying summers less and less these past few years because my family is in all different locations for so much of it and it just feels like my parts are all constantly scattered. I hate it. But that is where we are headed so soon now and so permanently. I don’t know what to say. If you don’t want to read about all of this grief about letting your kids go then probably pause reading this for a few years. Or probably forever. I’m sorry.
I know she feels it too. My sweet girl. She is already expressing some of that push you away pull you close behavior of someone who is beginning to separate. So natural. So gorgeous. So devastating. Yesterday, as she was recouping from end-of-week boatbuilding and childcare fatigue, she came out of her room, tears streaming down her cheeks to show me a TikTok. As one does. It was a narrative of an older sibling getting ready to move out and leave her younger brother or sister and reflecting upon all of the breakfasts they had shared together over the course of their childhood and how going forward the future breakfasts were just going to be an infinitesimal fraction of what they had been. The days and the breakfasts that felt like they would last forever. That were all you ever knew. She is so aware of the end right now. And the awareness of leaving Eider especially is heavy on her. Especially for all of those ways that he cannot yet perceive. He doesn’t see the end the way that she does yet. Or maybe he does but just not with the same magnitude.
Alright, I have to stop now. For now. I can’t see well enough to keep typing. Here’s to continually learning how to love and parent well. Through all of the breaking pieces of my being. We’ve got this friends! Onward.