You’ve sort of finished raising your kids.
They are adults who still need you, yes, but since they’re on their own, they need you in a different way.
They still need us to model being good citizens, parenting, navigating the adult world, and certainly they need to watch us make mistakes and repair relationships so they can try it themselves.
It’s hard to remember we are not friends, although we may have friendly behaviors. We aren’t peers or colleagues, even if they’ve gone into a similar field as us. If they’re parents themselves, it’s easy to feel like they have arrived to where we are. But they haven’t.
They may have different ideas than ours about how to parent, what it means to have a good work ethic, how to become a homeowner, who to vote for. And that’s healthy. It’s a really good sign that our kids aren’t miniature versions of us.
Mother and child relationships get more and more complex the older we get.
Our kids will use what we've taught them to become independent thinkers, with unique values, needs, and paths. And that’s healthy. And they'll get input and information from other sources that we may not like. And they'll make mistakes as we did. And some of those mistakes and some of those choices will feel devastating and heart-crushing to us. And God it's hard to accept that sometimes.
For a time we might need to love from afar, love up close, love in spite of, love because of, and love beside them - but keep loving. And know they love you.