WORRY Is there a magic cutoff period when offspring become accountable for their own actions? Is there a wonderful moment when parents can become detached spectators in the lives of their children and shrug, "It's their life," and feel nothing? When I was in my twenties, I stood in a hospital corridor waiting for doctors to put a few stitches in my son's head. I asked, "When do you stop worrying?" The nurse said, "When they get out of the accident stage." My mother just smiled faintly and said nothing. When I was in my thirties, I sat on a little chair in a classroom and heard how one of my children talked incessantly, disrupted the class, and was headed for a career making license plates. As if to read my mind, a teacher said, "Don't worry, they all go through this stage and then you can sit back, relax and enjoy them." My mother just smiled faintly and said nothing. When I was in my forties, I spent a lifetime waiting for the phone to ring, the cars to come home, the front door to open. A friend said, "They're trying to find themselves. Don't worry, in a few years, you can stop worrying. They'll be adults." My mother just smiled faintly and said nothing. By the time I was 50, I was sick & tired of being vulnerable. I was still worrying over my children, but there was a new wrinkle. There was nothing I could do about it. My mother just smiled faintly and said nothing. I continued to anguish over their failures, be tormented by their frustrations and absorbed in their disappointments. My friends said that when my kids got married I could stop worrying and lead my own life. I wanted to believe that, but I was haunted by my mother's warm smile and her occasional, "You look pale. Are you all right? Call me the minute you get home. Are you depressed about something?" Can it be that parents are sentenced to a lifetime of worry? Is concern for one another handed down like a torch to blaze the trail of human frailties and the fears of the unknown? Is concern a curse or is it a virtue that elevates us to the highest form of life? One of my children became quite irritable recently, saying to me, "Where were you? I've been calling for 3 days, and no one answered, I was worried." I smiled a warm smile. The torch has been passed.
I can see some truth in it but to be honest I'm not much of a worrier. I watched my mother worry and carry on incessantly about things she had no control over and it didn't help her or my sister and me so I was determined I wasn't going to be like that and thank goodness I'm not. Ann
I like it! I like it! (We used to say that in high school in a sing-song type voice when we really thought something was "cool." Probably I'm the only one on here old enough to have been in on that particular expression.)
Well, I wish you could tell me just exactly how your determination was so effective! My wonderful mother did not "carry on incessantly," but her emotions seemed to indicate that disaster was always immanent, and I seem to have inherited (I don't mean genetically inherited) that tendency. I fight against it constantly. Part of it is a pure and simple choise to think "on things above." Any other helpful hints?
