I Asked for It

I asked for it. Afterall, we expected him to secure a job by age 15, to be organized and excel at his studies, and we even piled on home responsibilities like trash, yard work and cleaning his toilet. Then, to top it off, we moved half-way across the country after his high school graduation with our youngest two children, leaving he and his older sister to fend for themselves in college on the west coast. Nevertheless, I was shell-shocked when my son called the last week of his freshman year of college to level the news.

"Mom, I want to stay in Oregon this summer," he said.

"I never wanted to move to Colorado anyway and I have a job lifeguarding again making over $21/hour, 40 hours a week," he continued, as if it’d been rehearsed.

I held my breath, in shock. Or not in shock; I'm not sure what reaction I had other than my sheer will not to overreact.

Truth is, my parents did the same thing to me, moving my senior year of high school and then forcing me to come home for two summers and work. No friends, no life, no choice, no fun. 

Speechless, more like it, until it occurred to me, he needed somewhere to live. How could he earn money for college with living expenses? Apparently couch surfing was his plan, rent free! 

'Portland Nice' is a thing, though as a mom raising four typical teens who tend to take more than they give, I knew the welcome mat would only be rolled out so long. It would be mere weeks before my 19-year-old would face tent camping along with the rest of the population in Portland who couldn't afford rent. 

I needed some time to process. Another loss in a year of extended grief from moving to multiple deaths in our family. The reality of one last summer with my college son ended as soon as he hung up the phone. 

I tried to picture him back-packing across Europe and staying in cheap youth hostels as I had at his age, though in his case it would be Portland, OR, and less safe with homicides and crime skyrocketing following a defunding of the police. He scored a bike, but would he even wear a helmet?

The reality was my son was 19, an ‘adult-ish’ person with a mind of his own. We raised him to be independent and resourceful and all I could do was cry. I moved through the stages of grief with rapid speed this time. Denial to acceptance in 24 hours, with buckets of private tears in between (and texts to girlfriends), because why would I want my children to question my grieving their next stage of life?

These were selfish tears, not tears of joy, though I tried to look at the bright side. Two kids instead of four at home would be cheaper! My grocery bill would be halved and our pantry relatively stocked. He was saving us the agony of boredom all summer, compounded with a heaping helping of guilt we forced him to move. There was a slim chance in hell he'd be living in our basement, forcing us to charge him rent later in life. Really, as parents we had it made, two launched, two to go!

It's August and we are nearly back-to-school. My son has survived an entire summer on his own, and not because we 'let him'. He made it happen, securing pet sitting jobs with housing, a full-time job lifeguarding and former neighbors have taken him in (and fed him) in exchange for yard work and little else. Turns out they wanted to support him, forced to pay much of his way through college. He even survived a week of Covid on his own!

My kids have taught me control is an illusion when it comes to parenting teens. It's a roller coaster; you have to buckle up and prepare for the ride. I've learned the outcome is the result of all the work you put in prior to launch. The showing up, the screen limits, letting them experience natural consequences, teaching them to work and making them earn a paycheck, not rescuing them from discomfort but witnessing their resilience in the end. It's the tough stuff that consistent parenting is made of. 

Is it perfect? No; but in the end, they will figure it out. Communication is key to surviving parenthood, whether I like it or not. Afterall, I asked for it. Two launched and two to go!