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A friend needed to bend my ear last night as she is reaching a critical juncture in motherhood, partnerhood, and selfhood and she cannot figure out her next step. I went out late to meet and talk, when usually I’m bound for bed and I’m glad I did, because oddly enough it could have been my younger self talking to me. The younger self stubbornly clinging to an ideal when reality is dealing you another card.

I kept thinking all along that age gives you distance from ideals and grounds you in a reality that is way more healthy. Don’t get me wrong, I love ideals, I love youthful energy, and I love to believe that a world exists that you could build oh so perfectly that nothing can harm or change it, not even today or the future – but frankly it doesn’t exist, like Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. They’re good for a time, but then poof they’re gone.

My friend made the comment that she (“how do you say without it sounding negative?”) admired what she saw as my “detachment”, as a parent and I said, it doesn’t exist. I’m not detached, but I do believe Tin needed to learn to sleep by himself, work out his frustrations sometimes by himself, and more than anything I understand my role is to encourage him to grow independent of me. That I know from age, not from detachment, because I know the consequences of my actions as a parent today are about guidance and support, not about creating and forming.

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