And So On: “Importance” as a Relative Commodity

Written by Channie G.

Thursday, 03 July 2008

The transition moments in our offspring's lives are not just the piercing ones, but are also those which seem, to us, to be mundane.

When I left my dining room to return to punching words out on my computer, my older son confronted me with an offer of a game of chess. Although I declined, I tried to be gracious in my response; I told him that I love him, that I love spending time with him, and that I can’t always stop my work to be lighthearted.

He frowned and grouched at “being rejected.” My boy also muttered, as he went his way, something about my always having time to assign household chores, but rarely having time to embody other parenting qualities.

In balance, when I am otherwise occupied, my family does not usually seek my attention; teens and tots differ in that regard. Most of the time, my loved ones accept that I need time to evolve me as well as to aid them. They typically remain safe in their realization that I become immediately available, if needed, to treat boo-boos, to confront a principal, or to serve, in other respects, as the vanguard against the hurts of their lives.

Yet, I think it would behoove us mothers, who have children growing through this last stage of childhood, to remember that our kids have less than poignant emotional needs as well as big ones. The transition moments in our offsprings’ lives are not just the piercing ones, but are also those which seem, to us, to be mundane.

Playing chess did not seem so important to me, a parent focused on publication deadlines and on shopping lists. To my son, that want felt imperative.

Had I all the wisdom of the world, I would remain unable to discern among the minutia of my teens’ lives, as per relative importance. I am better equipped to assess writing and kugel recipes (I do not make kugel, just contemplate it). I am practiced at critiquing college students’ work, not at evaluating teenagers’ needs. I am still waiting for the parenting users’ manual; none arrived at any of their births.

I know only that my adolescents value: the fruitful downloading of tunes to their iPods, the making of “creative” outfits from the stockpiles in their closets, and the promotion of new ways to engineer their chores with increased efficiency. I realize, merely, that my teens attach great esteem to my husband and my noticing the stepping stones of their development.

I doubt I will regularly be accessible to play board games when my children have a holiday which is not also mine, although I wish I might. I doubt I will always keep, in the forefront of my mind, praise or other appreciation of my children’s progress, despite the fact that I value such ideations.

I remain skeptical, as well, that regardless of the esteem to which I attach to it, I will even regularly engage in the behavior of “catching them acting good,” since, in reality, I am usually lost in thought. However, it is the case that I can try to remember that what is important to my kids does not have to be important to me.

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