Learning to Parent Young Adults
Welcome to the stage of parenting I know the least about. Let's dive right in.
We celebrated our son’s high school graduation this weekend. This is all familiar because we’ve done it with the twins but also new because he is our last one. As these things go, it did not fully hit me during the festivities because there was a cake to be ordered and a party to throw and final school things to be done. Two days after his party, I took this photo to mark the moment when it hit me that we have actually, fully, lived all the way through our kids childhoods.
There was no frantic anxiety, no lists, no tears. It was just a simple moment with my morning coffee at the very beginning of June.
I can feel myself quieting down on the inside in anticipation for this next season of life. It’s strange and wonderful and sobering. It’s standing on tip-toe and laying all the way flat. It’s a mystery and a gift.
I haven’t found the instagram accounts for moms with grown-up kids yet. My feeds are still filled with Maycember posts and snack hacks and younger moms doing younger mom things. Obviously I’ve been in this older-kid parenting stage for a while with only one still living at home. But my feeds are slower to catch up.
Of all the gradual things in this life, watching as your kids grow up is perhaps one of the most curious. It can be a difficult or delightful depending on the day, my mood, the headlines, the weather.
But bearing witness to their growing up is proving to be essential to my own spiritual formation in ways I never knew to expect.