Today I have become the mother of an 18-year-old manchild. 18 years ago today I gave birth to him. He came into this world tiny and wrinkled and apparently angry at being born so early. He was a premie but you can't tell it by looking at him today. He's taller than I am now and has a voice deeper than his father's.
When I look at him I can still see the silly little guy who'd laugh maniacally from the back seat of the car for seemingly no reason and whose laughter was infectious. You couldn't help but laugh when he did. He was a caring little guy too, in the waiting room of the doctor's office he'd go around and hand out magazines to folks who didn't have one. He felt everyone should have something to read. He still has those characteristics though he tries to hide them. It's not manly to care like he does you know. Or so he thinks anyway.
Still, I call him a manchild because he's still clinging tightly to childhood. He doesn't want to grow up you see. I think the only way he's going to is if we throw him from the nest and force him to fly alone. Next week he'll start his first "grown-up" job, he's going to work part-time with his father and will begin to save up for his impending independence. It's just a few short months away and I think we're both, his father and I, anxiously awaiting the date.
We love him, he's our child, but he's never going to grow up and learn to depend on himself if we let him stay here. We're both painfully aware of this though the mother in me has a hard time with pushing him out and forcing independence on him.
At the same time I'm looking forward. I can make use of his old room as my new home office. We'd get my unsightly computer desk out of the living room finally and maybe be able to add another piece of furniture so it's a little more cozy and hospitable in here.
I look forward too, to a little peace. There is always a tension with ZBoy, he's got it in his head that he's an adult and doesn't have to follow our rules or treat us with respect. Yet at the same time he wants us to parent and coddle him. It's tiring, everything is a fight, an argument, or a battle of wills. I wonder if other parents of teenagers go through this? Somehow I think it's just us, something to do with the way we've parented.
We've made a lot of mistakes, I was 16 when I gave birth to him, Master was 18. We weren't ready to be parents but my sense of responsibility wouldn't let me give him up. Maybe it was a maternal instinct, I don't know. I just knew I couldn't give my baby up. Some days I wonder if I've done him a disservice with that decision. It may seem selfish but he saved my life. I think that if it weren't for my responsibility and love for him I wouldn't have had any reason to improve myself. I don't believe that Master and I would have had any reason to stay together without him. Who knows though, that's a big what if.
I'm going to miss his presence here when he moves but at the same time I know I'm going to breath a sigh of relief.
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