Monthly Archives: June 2019

walkway with woman walking alone

The losing end of parenting….

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Today, my 13 year old daughter told me the way I dressed embarrassed her. I thought I looked good; I felt good in what I was wearing.

She told me I wear the same thing again and again and she would not be going on that walk with me, that people might see us. My heart broke.

I thought back to when she was young and wore her favorite shirt or pants or boots again and again and I would desperately try to hold back and let her be who she was and comfortable and happy in clothes that made her feel good.

How do I tell her that as she is coming into her own fashion sense, I feel that I am slowly losing touch with mine? How could I ever share with her the frustration and disconnect that I am all of a sudden feeling with a midlife body that is changing shape without my consent and taking my self-confidence with it?

How do I tell her that the clothes she is seeing me now choose are an outward reflection of the safety and comfort that I feel I am desperately losing on the inside in midlife? My changing as mother, my new role as an older female who feels suddenly dismissed within a youth-obsessed culture or the brutal reality of mortality that has somehow slipped into the room unnoticed and imposingly just stands there barrelchested?

How do I tell her how distant I feel from myself and how sad I am that she, my baby, is growing up and I realize that my ability to reproduce will soon gone forever?

I want to run to her and hold her tight and tell her to make good choices and be whoever she wants to be and celebrate life and that I love her more than she will ever know or at least until she herself is a mother.

But, for now, I don’t do any of that. I smile and nod with acceptance and put my headphones in and take that walk by myself.

Wrong way sign next to a one way sign

My way or no way

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Recently, a friend was sharing that when she told another midlife friend about the book I had written on the struggles I was facing in midlife, her friend’s response was “well, if she has time to write a book then it doesn’t sound like she is struggling.”

Why do we do this to each other? Why do we shut down, complain or criticize when someone is doing something that either we:

  1. Wouldn’t do
  2. Are too scared ourselves to do
  3. Can’t do for whatever reason
  4. Don’t want to do

Midlife is probably the loneliest time in our lives. Far from being all grown up and secure in who and what we are, we look around only to find that some things that we invested heavily in (whether it is emotionally or financially) will not necessarily give us the payout we hoped for and counted on.

When our life crop has finally matured we may find that cutting corners on the cheap seeds has rendered a weak overall crop or we have put all our energy into become expert farmers only to be hit by disastrous weather right before harvest. We may find disappointment with the sum total of all the small choices we have made. We have let some great friends go as we hunkered down to parent and now find it harder and harder to connect with others unless we see them at our kids activities and even then, conversations become about tasks and techniques and we hastily wave bye as we are running off to the next event.

Through our routines we decide what and who we like and want in our circle and we start to weed out the rest, at first just for convenience, later more for comfort. Only, when we let the connection with ourselves go we can often start to confuse growth with movement. We put down our connection and curiosity with our own self, for good reasons, to grow other human beings or partner with another. But often in the meantime, we become critical to those doing it differently and we embrace the sense of control we seem to have over our lives, and those of the small humans in our care, and become selective and exclusive. We become convinced that we have figured it all out and what is outside our comfort zone is threatening. Then midlife hits.

Midlife is the time to face the gift of loneliness it brings and begin to be vulnerable again. Our way has been that OUR way, it is not the only way and it is not the correct way for many. It is has been just our path. To carry on the “my way or no way” method beyond our parental control and into the world can become restrictive and poisonous to our ability to fully grow as an individual. It is time to acknowledge that each stage of the game will bring new challenges and require new skills and tools from us. When, as in my case, our children grow to a point where command and control not only becomes dated, it becomes toxic to a healthy relationship.

Midlife energy is such a disruptive gift. When someone does something that doesn’t fit into your repertoire, be open to it. Work on getting to My Way is Not the Only Way.