Dearest Em,

I wish I had known that there is no such thing as spoiling a baby- that my secure and consistent presence at that age actually results in a child who is more resilient and independent later.1 When a child grows up knowing they have a safe harbor in the world, they feel confident enough to be curious and venture farther out. Co-sleeping wasn’t for me, but there are so many times I put my babies down just because someone warned me that they would be “too clingy” one day.

I wish I had always chosen to stay with my children during their temper tantrums instead of abandoning them in their rooms until the “storm passed.” I wish co-regulation had been part of my vocabulary. I would have taught them to self-soothe instead of teaching them, as I had been taught, that bad behavior leads to isolation. I’ve apologized for this, now that they are older, but it is a major regret I don’t think I’ve forgiven myself for.

I wish I had been more careful with my words when talking about what I am good at and bad at, not realizing I was perpetuating gender norms about math and science. Not realizing I was taking options off the table for them. Not realizing I was teaching them to play small by not celebrating myself more.

I wish I had asked the family every night at dinner, “What is one kind thing you did today?” And “What did you fail at today?” I wish I had done more to normalize failure and highlight the importance of small acts of kindness.

What did I do right?

I always asked for context when my kids asked a difficult question. “Can you tell me where you heard that word? Can you tell me what you think it means?”

I always volunteered somewhere when I wasn’t working full-time. When they dawdled on the way to school, I reminded them that people were relying on me to show up - to cook or deliver meals or answer phones. I wanted them to know they weren’t my whole world, and that their actions had consequences on my day and others.

I taught my girls how to window-shop. How to come home empty-handed, but satisfied. How to look at toys and talk about how badly they want them and why. Then, we’d add them to a wish list, or I’d let them hide a toy on a low shelf, in a dark corner. Lay-away. Often, it wasn’t the toy they wanted; it was my undivided attention and the chance to have their big dreams heard.2

Now, as a mother of adult girls, I try to be quiet, present, and curious whenever they are talking. Psychologists (and religious scholars) agree that we all carry the deep wish to be fully known and fully loved. If we’re lucky, and many of us aren’t, that’s the kind of love our parents give us.

♥️♥️ I hope you found something helpful here in my scribbles. Thanks for reaching out and having this conversation with me!

With joy,

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What’s a parenting win you can share? Where have you had to reverse course?

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The toad was the size of her two cupped hands, fat and slow. Easy to catch. Her mother and sister squealed in disgust.

“Let it go!” screamed her sister – from a safe distance

“Wash your hands!” commanded Mother.

Later, they asked her if she kissed the toad. “Why would I do that?” she asked, confused. They giggled like a pair of playground bullies.

Papa was away that night, but he would have understood. He would have praised her for her bravery and stealthy speed.

She acted on instinct, without hesitation. Papa would have appreciated that. His voice would have been filled with pride. He would have let her bring it home.

Together, they could have inspected the toad under the kitchen light – counted its warts, and inspected its toothless grin. She could have known and named her conquest.

Papa would have mirrored her curiosity. He could have answered all her questions and explained the stream of warm liquid that her new friend dribbled down the front of her shirt. Instead, she suffered squeals and admonishments in the wake of a street lamp.

Poor little girl; how unfair it is to be raised by a squeamish sister and mother when you are brave, bound and determined.

With apologies, so much pride, and joy!

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She holds out her collection for me to see: three snail shells, a white seashell, and a peach pit. Here is her world of small things. Nothing escapes her big brown eyes.

As we walk a half-mile path through a field of tall grass, she stops a dozen times to inspect delicate flowers and small, winged creatures perched on the tips of weeds. My long strides propel me forward too quickly to appreciate all the treasures she finds along the way, so she calls me back to each new discovery, wrestling me down on one knee so I can smell the sun-baked soil.

Here, a zebra-striped butterfly that reveals itself only when its wings are extended in flight. Iridescent blue and green beetles gather around the exposed roots of a tree, moving balls of wet earth toward some unseen monument they’ve been commissioned to build.

She discovers an oak tree which, at certain times of certain days, is alive with the buzzing of bees. Her grandmother says she knows the tree well and that it is about to bloom.

She spies the perfectly intact shell of an insect that has outgrown its own skin. Its pinchers still cling to the tall blade of grass, where it finally decided that enough was enough. She counts and recounts its spindly legs and wonders at the tiny incision down its back from which the insect has escaped its too-small life.

She imagines what life was like for the snails that once inhabited her three shells and decides that they were friends who were discovered by her grandfather. He brought them home to her grandmother, who baked them in butter and garlic and served them with fresh bread. “Poor snails,” she sighs. “But oh, what pretty brown shells!”

The long white seashell, the size of her diminutive pinky, is evidence that the mountain top where we now stand was once the ocean floor. This is too much for her to imagine - tectonic plates and receding oceans. So, I offer her another peach, which she finishes in silence. She sucks the pit clean and adds it to her collection, telling me that she will soon plant an orchard full of juicy peaches.

And then she moves on, leaving me in silence and the world shimmering in the wake of her imagination.

Wishing you joy,

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When my children leave home, it isn’t the silence that marks their absence, it’s the sight of their bedroom doors – wide open. The cheerful sunlight streaming out of their rooms into the hallway as I head to the kitchen is a visual warning that something is not right, because when my kids are home, their doors are usually closed.

If you are, or have been, the parent of a teen, a closed bedroom door is a visceral symbol of a fraught and inevitable period of parenting. A right of passage for the whole family.

By age 12, my children started closing their bedroom doors in a bid for privacy they suddenly needed and to exert control in a house, and over parents, whom they resented for needing so much. The closed-door era lasted for … a long time…, during which my husband and I quietly worried, Googling questions like: Why won’t my tween come out of their bedroom? And how much alone time is too much for a teen?

The internet convinced us that the closed-door era we experienced was developmentally normal. Behind that door, our teens were building independence, forming identity, and finding a retreat from our constant supervision. We learned to knock and wait before entering, and we got used to the firm “Please close the door” at the end of every conversation – at least they were polite.

“The door will likely open when they feel their privacy is safe and their independence is respected.” - Quora & Reddit

In the final week of winter break, my daughter announced that she’d been home too long. She was antsy, irritable, and bored. I had to agree, it was time for her to go – back to the sun and warm weather of California, back to her friends who met her at the airport, back to her twin bed and ‘difficult’ roommate, who she occasionally enjoys. Back to the college courses that challenge her and the professors who intimidate her. Back to her “dream school”. Back to her independence.

A few days after she left, I washed her sheets and towels, tidied up her clothes and makeup, and deep-cleaned her bedroom and bathroom. And then I left her bedroom door wide open.

I leave it open so I can admire the room’s perpetual tidiness and to remind myself that she is exercising the independence I raised her for, the independence she wanted every time she closed her bedroom door.

The open doors also reminds me of my own independence. The end of an era when I put domestic labor above my creativity, the care and keeping of them, above the care and keeping of me. In the morning, I walk past their open doors and celebrate a job well done – before diving into the expanse of my life today.

When my girls are away, I revel in the excitement of the independence they are mastering, and when they return, when I am most tired of their absence and hungry for their love – I greet them with tight hugs and say, “Oh, how I missED you!”

With joy, Renée

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When my little girl came home from college in December, she was sick, overstimulated, and tired. She needed to sleep in her own bed, in her own room, hibernating behind a closed door for days. Eventually, she emerged, drawn out by the promise of home-cooked meals in exchange for any breadcrumbs of ‘tea’ or insight into her college life.

College freshmen home for the holidays are like skittish deer. You can lure them out with food and love, but if you act too interested in their well-being or their whereabouts, they grab the car keys and bolt.

There’s a widely accepted, but perhaps not scientifically proven statistic that by the time your child is 18, you have spent around 90% of the time you will ever spend with them in your lifetime. It’s a bleak statistic that proves any time with your young adult is time to be treasured.

SO, when my daughter asked if I wanted to watch Love Is Blind with her, I said, ‘Yes!’ despite my disdain for reality TV.

There is nothing passive about watching reality TV with a young person.

Watching Love is Blind allowed me to ask questions I could never have broached in casual conversation. Side by side on the sofa, we talked about relationship red flags and green flags, and what she thought about boys and dating apps. Was she on dating apps?! I asked her if looks and height were important to her- or is love really blind? We talked about what ended her last relationship and how she might know when she’s met ‘the one.’

As we watched the show’s contestants nervously pacing around their rooms, she told me about zoochosis, abnormal, repetitive behaviors in captive animals. I reminded her that when she was a toddler, we would sit on the same sofa and watch the animated children’s show Wild Kratts – when her first love was animals and their behavior.

Apparently, best practices for watching TV with your child are the same whether they are 18 months or 18 years old: “focus on co-watching to enhance learning. Actively engage by discussing the show, connecting content to real life.” 1

I may be a happy empty nester, but I’m always looking for connection with my children. Knowing that I’ll be lucky to get 10% of her time over the remaining 30 years of my life, I’m not going to be picky about how we do it. I’ll go on any journey she invites me on, a trip to the mall, an hour of The Kardashians –I’m letting go of judgement and focusing on opportunities.

With joy, Renée

If you enjoy my writing, please drop me a like, it encourages me to keep going.

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Between ‘Goodbye’ and ‘I missed you.’

In January, we sent our youngest back to college. We said goodbye at the airport, knowing we wouldn’t see her until May, knowing that she’d celebrate her first birthday without us.

She hugged us tight and reassured us with versions of, ‘I love you,’ ‘I’ll be back before you know it.’ ‘Don’t worry, I’ll call,’ and ‘It’s gonna be fine!’ before scampering off beyond TSA and out of our reach.

When she was 3, I reassured her with the same words while her preschool teacher coaxed her away from me. “I love you, sweetie! You’re going to have so much fun today!”

Apparently, child separation anxiety goes both ways and requires the same strategy, no matter who does the leaving: calmness, reassurance, consistency, and practice.

I don’t think my little girl missed me when we were apart. For a few short hours, she enjoyed circle time, played with friends, explored the playground, and learned colors and shapes. Then miraculously, at noon, just as hunger and overstimulation crept into her little body, I would reappear at pickup. She’d catch sight of me at the classroom door and run into my arms, full speed, wrapping herself tightly around me. With surprise and delight, and not a touch of sadness, she’d say, “Mommy! I missED you!”

MissED, hard emphasis on the -ED.

I can live the rest of my life sustained by the way she said those words. One small sentence, like a bow unraveling on a gift she’d been waiting impatiently to open—three little words, with added emphasis, to acknowledge the hardship of time apart, and the act of loving each other from afar.

Now it’s my turn, as the parent, to endure and trust that “Goodbye” is a necessary prelude to “I missED you!”

With joy, Renée

If you enjoy my writing, please drop me a like or a comment, it encourages me to keep going.

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Right now, my eldest daughter is closer to my husband than she is to me. She’s 24, living and working in New York City. He’s her go-to. Her first call when she’s angry or stressed, or in need of work advice — and I’m okay with that.

“Know who to go to, depending on what you need,” I remind my girls. If they need a soft place to land, someone to hold them while they vent, they come to me. I’ll pour them some tea, prepare a plate of cookies or cut fruit, and sit quietly until they’re all cried out.

If they’re tired of feeling sorry for themselves, if they need motivation and a swift kick in the butt, a ‘hype guy,’ they go to their father.

I’m not stereotyping gender roles. I’m honoring what each of us brings to parenting. What comes naturally to me is often a struggle for my partner, so my girls navigate between us depending on what they need.

There may be only one way to load the dishwasher (my way!), but letting my partner parent his girls his way is the greatest gift I have given myself, my girls, and my family.

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In the last weeks of my first pregnancy, both of us were wracked with fear and doubt. More than once, my husband woke in a cold sweat from a recurring nightmare. “I was changing her diaper, and her arm fell off!”

In Belgium, where she was born, I enjoyed five full days of recuperation in the hospital. While I lay in bed, my husband took every opportunity the nurses gave to learn how to bathe, diaper, and swaddle his little girl. He shared the tips and tricks he learned with me as his confidence grew. One nurse reported, with a touch of concern, that he liked “flying” our swaddled, two-day-old over his head and around the bathing room.

A few weeks later, my mother complained that he diapered the baby as if she were “a turkey being trussed on Thanksgiving Day.” It was his confidence that unnerved her. “You’ve just never seen a man do it,” I said. “Let him be.”

Fast forward 6 years. Our second daughter is just under a year old, and I’m laid up with mastitis in one breast, alternating between heating pads, pain reliever, and a manual breast pump. “Please, just take the girls out for the day so I can sleep,” I begged.

Hours later, he returned and carefully laid our sleeping baby next to me. I took one sniff, and my eyes grew wide. “Why does she smell like gasoline fumes?!”

Sheepishly, he explained that he had found an indoor go-karting track and video arcade about 40 minutes from our home, so he headed there and enrolled our 6-year-old in go-karting lessons for the afternoon. That night, he bathed, fed, and put both girls to bed as though it were his mea culpa. “Leave him be,” I grumbled to myself.

Go-karting turned out to be a big deal in our family. From the age of seven to 16, our eldest daughter competed in a year-round go-karting league. Her father was her coach and her mechanic. Her swift kick in the butt and her “hype guy.” On Saturdays, they’d spend 3 hours together strategizing, arguing, and managing each other’s emotions.

One day, when my eldest was about 10, she came to her father after a race, shaking with frustration. One of the boys was bumping her on the track. She was furious. “Here’s what you do,” he told her. “Tell him you want to talk to him. Get right up in his face, put your finger into his chest, and tell him to ‘Knock it off!’” And then he stood back and watched from across the room as she did just that.

Recently, I pointed out to my daughter what her father did that day. He gave her permission to use her voice. Her angry voice. He proved to her that she could take care of herself. That’s a powerful thing when you are 10, with glasses and braces and skinny noodle arms, racing go-karts against boys bigger and stronger than you.

I could not have done that. I was still struggling with my good girl tendencies. I would not have done that. I would have stepped in and spoken with the boy’s father. Only my partner could have given her that gift.

My daughter’s voice and her confidence to use it have always seemed remarkable to me. She’s the one to politely ask for a better table away from the front door; she doesn’t apologize before asking a question at work; and, apparently, “Have you tried saying NO?” is her go-to advice for friends. I didn’t teach her these things. I think she had the good fortune to be in the right place, at the right time, with the right parent giving her the right advice.

So yeah, I’m not my daughter’s person right now — and that’s okay.

Feeling confident, at age 10, with Daddy.

With joy,

If you enjoy my writing, please leave a comment or drop me a like; it encourages me to keep going.

Leave a comment

I’d like to connect with creatives – young and old – who write about parenting/ motherhood, marriage, and midlife. Please say, “Hi!” – let’s collaborate on topics where we overlap or align.