Our Spring Break was a sunbeam of an unexpected 3-day visit with our daughter, Mirabai. This is not to say it was all smiles and ice cream cones; her junior year of college has been a rough go with no quick fix. But Rael and I got to drink spicy chai with her and browse vintage shops and slurp pho noodles and listen. It was a fine-tuning; we fiddled with the dials to more clearly receive. I’m so grateful she made that happen. While I was away, your responses to Puzzled Mom’s concern about her son’s non-dating were AMAZING, like hanging out among the kindest, wisest group of parents ever. 🥹 There’s still time to participate — public comments close at the end of the day today.
The next Mailbag Q&A goes live April 3. Send in your question for the hive mind!
We never outgrow our need for mentors.I keep going on about the Mailbag because it opens up the possibility of mentorship. I sense that few of us walk around feeling like legitimate grown-ups who know what we’re doing (as we imagined our parents to be but now know better). At the same time, we recognize we’ve picked up a thing or two along the way. “This one weird trick,” only for life. Sharing our weird tricks matters. I don’t think we ever outgrow our need for mentorship. I’m drawn to the stories of women a few years older than me because I’m hungry for anything that might illuminate what’s ahead. I read Oldster Magazine and listen to Julia Louis-Dreyfus’s Wiser Than Me podcast. I loved Mary Pipher’s Women Rowing North (Amazon/Bookshop.org affiliate) and Karen Walrond’s Radiant Rebellion (Amazon/Bookshop.org affiliate). I relish conversations with friends and neighbors who are willing to open up. My kids are growing into seeing us as mentors.I’m tooting the horn about the value of stumbled-upon wisdom because parenting young adults can feel like a slide into irrelevance. As my kids like to remind me, the world has changed since we were in our 20s. Our kids are forging their paths and getting familiar with their internal guidance systems. Conventional wisdom says they don’t want our advice. But I’m seeing just the opposite: my kids value Rael’s and my input in ways they didn’t when they lived at home. Especially Sam, who’s been living and working in Minnesota since he graduated in 2022. He seeks out our mentorship. The conditions of our lives have grown similar enough that he can see the utility of our experience. He appreciates the takeaways even when the details don’t line up. Sam called the other day with a minor health question. He hasn’t yet jumped through the necessary hoops to get established with a primary care doctor. This kind of stuff is easy to sweep under the rug until it becomes urgent. I get it. There are certain bureaucratic details I still avoid longer than I should and I pay the price, anxiety-wise. ADULTING. It never ends. 👵🏽🤷🏽♀️ I shared my struggle with procrastination with Sam and gave him some foolish-but-human examples. Failure reborn as strength! I could approach the issue from I’ve been there rather than you should. I closed with a loving-but-firmly-delivered reality check. I call it the “90-second ass-kicking.” At 24, Sam can handle the straight talk. He knows it’s not scolding — it’s a show of respect for his adulthood.
Who are your mentors, either folks you know or publications/podcasts you follow? How does “mentorship” play out in your family?
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Update: archived public posts will move behind the paywall after six months. You’ll find details about subscriber benefits on the About page. Thanks for reading Parent of Adults, my newsletter for “seasoned” parents who, like me, want to do this empty nesting thing in community with other nice people. Subscribe for free or choose a paid subscription with extra benefits — my “thank you” for your support. Feel free to forward this to someone who might like it. If you’d prefer to text or post a link, click Share.
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Wednesday, March 20, 2024
The 90-second ass-kicking
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