A Season of Change

It is finally less oppressively hot in Houston, though no less humid. Hurricane season isn’t over, and you still sweat when you so much as look out the window, but the weather is indeed changing. Halloween decor is going up around our neighborhood and big box stores have moved straight to Christmas decor. Most importantly, we have a new family member. My sister gave me another nephew Tuesday morning, and he is perfect.

Things are also noticeably shifting in our home. I have been a stay-at-home mom for eleven years. I have always been the “available parent.” I rarely left the house without my kids in tow, didn’t leave the house at all during the pandemic, and then when things were officially opened up, I started chaperoning field trips and ended up assistant coaching a soccer team. I said I couldn’t do those things before because I always had a baby at home, which was true, but I am just not that person. I don’t want to join any parent groups, and we are absolutely not participating in any MLM style fundraising nonsense that involves harassing neighbors and friends. But when my kids asked me to join their activities, I eventually did.

Now, though, I am busier. I am busier because the kids are busier, and they have more complicated needs than they did before. It seems every week at least one kid has a major test, there’s homework every night, advanced classes are taking a toll, classes are being switched, teachers need to be contacted, clubs and activities are coming in the near future, and there’s not a lot of time to be the available parent anymore. I physically can’t be available to every kid in the two hours between when they get off the bus and when we start the bedtime routine. I also have to provide dinner and clean it up, get them showered and groomed, and all the other hundreds of tiny tasks required of a parent. It’s not groundbreaking – parents do this stuff all the time – but as things change I feel like my kids are getting a raw deal.

I have three children, all with very different personalities and needs. Each requires a different style of parenting to thrive (or in some cases, survive) and when I’m rushed and overwhelmed, I sometimes forget to swap methods when interacting with a different child. Each kid prefers to talk to me in private when they are having some kind of concern, didn’t do their best on a test, got a warning from a teacher, had a fight with a friend, whathaveyou. My kids get home at close to five, and when they sit down to do homework I am preparing dinner. If a kid has a big feeling or a problem and wants to talk privately, I can’t leave things on the stove and abandon the kid struggling to finish his math at the counter to talk about the boy who pulled his hair on the bus.

All of those things are important, and even though I’m fortunate enough to have my evenings free to be with my children, I still can’t be everything they need me to be. They attend two schools in the same district, and both parent-teacher nights were the same time on the same day, so I couldn’t go to both (I would like to meet the genius who scheduled this). Each child would like to do a different activity in a different part of town, and I can’t split myself into three.

Now, I’ve got my own schedule to add to the mix. As I write more and work outside the home, I know there will be things I miss on behalf of my kids. When they forget their homework folder, I won’t be home to grab it and run it to school. Staying home sick/coming home sick has been a luxury if the kids aren’t feeling their best, but now in “real school” they send home a threatening form letter about the importance of attendance if my kid misses half a day for puking in PE. Add to that my new schedule, and we’ve got a very strict “no staying home unless there’s a fever or you need stitches” rule.

None of this is specific to just us – families are doing it every day. Working and single parents deal with this type of thing all the time. It’s already tough on my kids to lose their constantly available parent, even though I’m fortunate that I’m still physically available before and after school for the most part. So much change has come their way, and the accelerated maturity and responsibility that comes with logistical changes like these is both impressive and deflating. They should get more time to be carefree kids, but alas, here we are. They have to keep track of their own busy lives and learn to lose luxurious one-on-one time with Mom whenever they want it, special elaborate meals, and last minute requests, because I am elbow deep in laundry or dinner or someone else’s homework problem. There are a lot of balls in the air during the school year, and we will adjust, but some will get dropped whether we want them to or not.

Taking on more responsibility and independence is part of growing up, but I miss the times when we should stay home for a runny nose or vague sense of malaise. Big kid school has big kid rules, homework, projects, tests, and other kids who are going through the same stressors and sometimes pick on classmates to cope. Having three kids that were very young and needy was tough, but I think this season will be more difficult, because they are old enough to notice when they can’t get some facetime with Mom when they want it, and their lives are so much more complicated.

We want our kids to have the best childhood possible so they can find their passions and prepare to be adults one day. How each family gets their kids to adulthood is different, but the logistics are hard on everyone.