A Mother's Heart Feb. 24, 2009

I have discovered that the agonies and ecstasies of growing up myself were a piece of cake compared to watching my daughters navigate the same bumps in the road. I read somewhere that once you have a child, it's like walking around with your heart outside your body, and that describes it exactly for me. Their hurts are our hurts, but it's worse because we have no control over fixing them. I have to keep reminding myself that just as I dealt with the issues of my college days,(if I drink too much at the disco and dance with a stranger, am I a floozy?) my daughters are both capable and smart and able to deal with theirs, too. Maybe it's the constant means of communicating with our kids these days that makes us so much more involved with their lives and problems: cell phones, text messages, instant messages, Facebook, e-mails....I had to write my parents real letters with a stamp, or call them once a week and tell them what I was up to (usually heavily censored!) Thirty years later, MY mother is just discovering that I partied a lot at UW -Eau Claire, while all I have to do is go on Facebook and see what my daughters are up to--with pictures or even video accompaniment!!
So, I will continue to be here to listen and try not to provide the solutions (like I even know them!) Sometimes experience is the only way to grow, even if it hurts.

"Figuring out who you are is the whole point of the human experience." -- Anna Quindlen