The Child is Father of the Man

Standing in the canned vegetables aisle at the supermarket last week, my search for sweet pickle relish was interrupted by the high decibel, panicked shriek of “Mommm!!!” from who knows where in the store. Of the four other women sharing the space with me, the heads of three jerked up in alarm before returning to their quests for tomatoes, beets, or artichoke hearts. With my own mom’s birthday just days away and her on my mind more than usual, I walked out of the store that day thinking about how many women in the world traded in their given names the day they became Mom, and how hearing any variation of that title uttered, especially by a child, forever evokes a Pavlovian call to action.

As children we’re not cognizant of our parents’ multi-dimensionality, nor should we be. The beauty of being a child is that we are spared the need to be aware of anything outside of our own experiences. The best parents I know create a kind of bubble for their children to inhabit because they know that life is full enough of enormous milestones in the early years without needing to know that Mom and Dad also go by Janice or Miguel. For goodness’ sake, I was plenty unnerved by my teeth falling out without warning to receive the knowledge that my parents had more than paper-doll depth! Oftentimes, though, children can move into late adolescence and even full-blown adulthood without experiencing the epiphany that their parents have interests, traumas, insecurities, and needs that have nothing (or sometimes everything) to do with their offspring.

One of my favorite parts of being an adult (because it surely isn’t my need for reading glasses or the frequency with which I begin stories with, “Well, when I was young…”) is that I get to be friends with my parents now. We made it through the rough patches characteristic of all parent/child relationships (and some last longer than others) into a space where we’re all adults who make our own decisions, pay our own bills, and enjoy interactions that are not driven by them solving my problems, financing my life, or engaging in activities in which only I have an interest. It shames me to admit that I still learn something new about my parents with each conversation because it means I wasn’t paying attention sooner. I see them as complex, fallible humans whose lives have included almost unbearably sad times, along with achievements and dreams of which they’ve been far too humble to speak.

When I look at Daddy and Mama, healthy and active in their 70s now, I can see all of the ages they have been and I can imagine how the experiences of each year have layered themselves onto the parents I know, shaping their opinions and hearts, and when I see this all I want to do is make a pot of coffee, get comfortable in the rocking chairs, and say, “Okay, start from the beginning and tell me everything!”

Accompanying this realization, however, is the equally potent and vivid one of the times in my life when I spoke thoughtlessly to or behaved selfishly with them with absolutely no regard for the effect this had on these two people who, for reasons I’ll never understand, didn’t toss me out on my noggin to fend for myself. I’ll never forget walking downstairs to see my mom in the kitchen preparing dinner, and in response to her telling me that it was spaghetti, I said with an eye roll and bratty sigh, “Again? We have that all the time!” And while she could have (should have) said, “Yes, spaghetti again because having a picky eater, vegetarian daughter makes mealtime variety pretty challenging!” she did not. And, upon learning that my dad (who spent his daylight hours at work five days a week), would be driving me to school because he actually had a little time off, snapping, “Is he driving that old Buick?” He said not one word but had every right to remind me that his choice to drive “that old Buick” allowed me to have braces, a home, a college fund, and more.

The rest of my lifetime isn’t long enough to ask all the questions and offer all the apologies I have to two people who have been so enduringly important. Those of us who are adult children with parents we can call or text bear the beautiful burden of taking a look at these individuals who, in the assessment of most, are long overdue for sainthood for their years of worrying, sacrificing their own comfort and needs, and allowing us the privilege of self-centeredness. I’m sure there are some adults who miss the chance to let these relationships evolve, and that is regrettable. I’d bet a year of no coffee that those mothers standing with me in the grocery store last week consider it their greatest achievement to wear the lifetime title given to them by their children, but I’d also be willing to bet that it’s every parent’s wish that their children one day will be able to see them as the real, messy, wonderful men and women they are, too. And to love them all the more for it.