The evolution of parenting

As a child, I thought my mom and dad had all the answers. If they didn’t, I was told to “look it up” … not Google it … look it up in a book. If Ralph didn’t know, the answer could be found in the gilt-edged pages of the Encyclopedia Britannica, volume 1-22.

Then, you grow up. Mom and dad are no longer masters of the universe. They are just two pests standing between you and fun. Mom and dad’s favorite activity seems to be inventing cruel and unusual punishments for not doing homework, sneaking out of the house, or looking them straight in the eyes and lying.

They knew you were lying, so why did they let you sit there and lie? This is precisely when your once-admiring gaze mutates into eye-rolling.

I can proclaim that the eye roll of a 10-17-year-old can’t compare to the attitude of a quasi-adult child. That is happening to me now in real time.

For the most part, Jackson’s visit home after his first semester in college has been incredible. We talked, cooked, watched movies, and snuggled. It’s been wonderful. Although there were a few occasions when he reacted to something me or his dad said in such a way that I considered dropping him at the airport early. But then I remembered Jacob’s visits home from college. So, this is normal.

It hit me during week two of operation stare down. Jackson is just learning to navigate this world. For the first time, he’s making a lot of decisions without our input.

It’s exciting, scary and exhausting all at once. Of course, it’s hard for Jay and I to understand the things he gets stressed about. Life experience and age give us the”this is not the end of the world” edge that Jackson doesn’t possess yet. He must walk through the scary unlit hallways of the world and come to his own conclusions.

Managing everything that’s being thrown at him at 19 years old is overwhelming.

He can’t stomp back to his room and slam the door when he’s mad at something or someone. That’s hard to do with soft-close doors and when you share a dorm with three other people.

This is what I know for sure-ish. Between the ages of 10-20, kids don’t think you’re cool. A 10-year-old thinks loud farts and not bathing are cool.

While a 20-year-old may prefer watching an entire season of “Succession” on their phone instead of a television sitting less than five feet away. Cool is just an adjective used to describe things like cars, tattoos, and cross-country trips … not parents.

While we won’t always agree about everything, I do enjoy this healthy evolution of my relationship with our kids. We’ve gone from authoritarian figures to confidants … still not cool ... and that’s totally fine. Besides, it will take a few years of navigating health insurance, car payments, and mortgage payments for Jacob and Jackson to realize that the real enemy of fun is adulting, not mom and dad. It was adulting all along.

Have comments? E-mail becky@wilsonlivingmagazine.com.