Local Voices: Whose Kid Is That Anyway?

So we are on vacation and we stop into a . I have trained my children well—they have their own cups, they can order their drinks, my older son has his own Starbucks card.

So my younger son orders and heads down to the end of the counter to wait for his drink. Basically, he tells the barista his and our whole life story. He’s awesome at math, we are on vacation, we got a new dvd player for the car. On and on and on. He talked non-stop for about 10 minutes and the barista was great. She kept up with him and really treated him as a adult with whom she was having a real conversation. 

I am standing back, thinking to myself, "Man, he really doesn’t need me at all. He is his own little person."

All the sudden, right before your eyes, they grow up. They have a sense of humor. They have quirks about what color clothes they like to wear or how they like their silverware arranged around their plate. Wow. They are their own people. 

It is freaking me out, I will freely admit. It happened so suddenly. I am not sure who they are when they are apart from me. I’m worried how they will express themselves to outsiders. I am even more worried about how the outsiders will respond to them. Accept them? Mock them? Encourage them? 

Isn’t this supposed to be something you deal with at 18 when they move out? “Crazy-mom-mode” wants to kick in and keep them in a box, safe and sound in my sights and within arm’s reach. It’s terribly difficult to let them grow up at ages 6 and 8. They are still small enough to be bent to my will, though old enough to voice their opinion. And opinions they certainly have. They still seem helpless, and I want to jump in and resolve the conflicts. 

But I can’t. Six and half hours a day, five days a week, they fend for themselves. They communicate, protect, learn and fail. All without me. It's not until the end of the day, or maybe not until parent-teacher meetings, that I am allowed into their world. I discover who my children really are. And it’s amazing to stand back and look at them and burst with pride.