White Picket Fence Thoughts and June Cleaver Dreams
Lately, I have been very sentimental, looking at my son and mourning the loss of his childhood. I asked him yesterday if he wanted to go to the local blueberry and blackberry farm early Sunday morning and pick fruit.
“Nah, that’s ok,” he told me.
Well, it’s not ok. Where did the little boy go who couldn’t sit still, who was eager and excited to do anything I suggested? While he was growing up, I was not only a working mother, but also a single mother. This was a double dose of mother guilt. Not only was I raising him alone, in a non-traditional household, but I also worked too many hours and left him in daycare to be raised by wolves. What kind of mother was I?
This caused me to spend most of my weekends thinking up activities to do or finding some fun project to do at home, to have that “quality time” with him while I was home. I still find myself trying to think of ways to entertain him, because I cannot fully accept that he is a teenager who would rather entertain himself — far, far away from me (or at least in the other room).
I recently asked him, “Remember when I took you to the children’s museum?”
“No, I don’t remember,” he told me.
I continue to obsess about what he will remember about his childhood, if he will have any fond memories, and if I wasted my time thinking up all these activities to spend with him. Even if he doesn’t remember the specific activities, hopefully he will remember the time I spent with him, and forgive me for having to work every day, for being the mother who sent the snacks instead of attending the school parties, and for not giving him that Norman Rockwell painting of a childhood.
June 22nd, 2008 at 8:52 am
Trish, he’ll remember things. He’s just a teenage boy right now and just cuts you a little short. My boys remember some doozies every now and then. It also seems they remember the little things and not the big ones. You would think they would remember going to a great place or vacation you took and they remember watching Back To The Future eating a bowl of popcorn or riding your bikes to Wilson Park. Just give him a little time.