"MooOOm" and other small betrayls

"All children, except one, grow up. They soon know that they will grow up, and the way Wendy knew was this. One day when she was two years old she was playing in a garden, and she plucked another flower and ran with it to her mother. I suppose she must have looked rather delightful, for Mrs. Darling put her hand to her heart and cried, "Oh, why can't you remain like this for ever!" This was all that passed between them on the subject, but henceforth Wendy knew that she must grow up. You always know after you are two. Two is the beginning of the end."  -J. M. Barrie, Peter Pan, Chapter 1

My father once remarked about his teenage daughters, "they all eventually turn on you." I remembering thinking "What a cynical statement!" I was in my 20's, and so much of my father's wisdom seemed like sideways energy at the time. At best, such comments were swept into the attic of my brain to be further neglected or dusted off later.

Mark Twain famously observed “When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.”  

I feel his father's pain. Unbelievably, our daughter, Grace will be 16 this July, and lately she finds me too critical, uncouth, and even slightly embarrassing.  

Despite my best efforts, how did I end up as one of those embarrassing parents? 

Granted, she has never accused me of such things directly. Because Grace has always been a polite child, she generally expresses even such traitorous thoughts in a thoroughly courteous manner. Now, her tone can go south on bad days and that's another thing.  But most of the time, she has mastered the art of a small teasing smile accompanied by an upward lilt to her "MooOOOM!" The combination renders the word a bit of correction and joke all at once.  In fact, on the surface, a stranger could interpret the scene as mere good-natured ribbing.  But I know better.  

I recognize the lilt for what it is--it's the lilt of a youth who believes herself wiser than the adult, the decided arrogance of an emerging adult.  The lilt of a young lady who has measured her emerging self against her imperfect mother and found the mother wanting... 

Thus, my father's words floated to the top of my thoughts this morning. Is this the betrayal he spoke of so long ago? If so, why do I find myself surprised that my daughter is experiencing the same sense of separation and need for self definition that I did at her age?   

Nagbibinata means a boy growing up... by Toti Cerda

Haplessly, we walk a well trod trail, and despite repeated warnings, find ourselves shocked to discover that we are not the first---nor will we be the last--to navigate this rocky terrain. We hold tight to the hope that the trail will be different for us.

But, indeed, the trail has been bumpy the last bit, and I suspect the trail will not improve for miles to come.  Though we walk together, we stumble often.

We are both transitioning into new seasons of life. On good days, Grace is learning how to be a young lady, and I'm learning how to be gracefully middle aged.  

On her bad days, we are both downright moody about this transition.  She's mad at losing her grip on her warm-fuzzy childhood. On my bad days, I linger too long over the seeming simplicity and wholeness of their childhood.  The image of three young children playing with toys, the growing up all bright and shiny before us seems winsome in rosy retrospect.

On our bad days, Grace wonders how she will shoulder the ever-increasing avalanche of adult responsibilities that loom nearer and nearer. And I, I struggle to look upon the same complex horizon and assure her that we will figure it out calmly, piece-by-piece.  How will we? I envision the miles of hard work ahead...

On our worst days she cries, and I scream. On these darkest of days, I doubt that the time I've invested in their education and rearing has been wisely spent.  Perhaps there was a simpler, better way to go about all this that I missed because I am still growing and learning myself. 

Ah, this is an adult truth too, that we never fully figure itself out ourselves before we have to teach it.

If anything, I'm feeling frailer and humbler in my 40's.  I'm slower moving than I used to be. My energy has definite limits.  I miss a lot more---more and more and more as the years dash on. In fact, I've been wrong last year, last month, last week, yesterday.  I often feel like I am chasing a train I'll never quite catch, and I used to believe I could catch it, if I ran very fast, if I ran very hard...but now. Now I'm pretty sure I won't.

I wince a bit inwardly to type these thoughts---something about writing them makes them more menacing and true.  The teenage years are not for the faint of heart.  Nor is middle-age...  We will just have to walk the trail and imperfectly keep bumping along as best we can.

And, I do understand my father---better than ever. There is a generational fellowship in remembering his comment--his caution.  It sweetens the loss of slowly losing the Grace of her childhood. My father felt the same loss first when I left my own childhood self behind.  I betrayed him before she betrayed me. And she betrayed me before her own child will walk the same path.

Although I find Khalil Gilbran too mystical at times, his poem "On Children" touches on this bittersweet rite of passage:


On Children

Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them,
but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children
as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
and He bends you with His might
that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
so He loves also the bow that is stable.

-Kahlil Gilbran


Too often for my liking, I feel like a too brittle and strained bow.  We stretch and our children go forth, at times painfully breaking the boundaries and perceptions we've faithfully instilled for years. We ache and they spring.  We bend and they sail. They lilt their head and say "MooooOOOM...." as the zing off our bow. 

But the upside is that they come out more authentically themselves for the journey.  The upside is that we get to see them fly differently--hopefully more gracefully--than we ever did.

Thank God! We won't always see life the same as our parents.   At the passing of the torch, there should always be the hope of a bit of forward progress from generation to generation.  It may not be progress in the specific areas we laid stake to, but progress nonetheless.

We share the privilege of gazing at the same horizon together, however daunting, with faith that the Lord will justify and use the work of our hands as imperfect as it may be.

And Grace, she will dust off her own attic of thoughts when the time is ripe, look back, and a bit of the "MoooOOm" may be redeemed.  I may not be around to see the full circle, at least not from this vantage point.  My father wasn't.  

But, I've seen enough of the circle to sense its arch and know who formed it.