I’ve been feeling a bit blue lately. What this time of quarantine has magnified for me is that I am practically obsolete. My kids do not need me. Ironically back when my flock was 4 little ducklings I always got questions like, “how do you raise such independent, capable kids?” as mine toddled around loading the dishwasher, running the vacuum, and packed their own snacks for school. The secret to raising independent kids is having a wide tolerance for acceptable combined with overwhelming fatigue: “They dumped the silverware in the drawer, mixing up all the utensils, but hey, the dishwasher is empty and I didn’t have to do it myself. Winning.” or “Would we call this shirt folded or crumpled? Eh, wrinkles never hurt anybody and it’s going to get dirty again in two seconds when kid #2 wipes his blueberry stained hands on it . . . moving on.”
So dang it! I really have worked myself out of a job. I joke that I’m an excellent baby mama as I wear them all the time, feed them on demand, and give them all of myself. Then I try to set them up for success by making their lives their job and doing less and less for them as they can do more.
So they learn to fill out their own permission slips for school and other events and drop them in front of me when they are ready to be signed, emails from school get forwarded to them with my message, “Take care of this,” and if they want me to do something they have to learn to put it on the family calendar to make sure I’m available. There’s a fine line between training for independence and neglect and sometimes I wonder if I’m on the right side of the line . . . but when I see how involved some other parents are (remember, I work at a High School), I’m reassured that my kids may need a therapist someday, but at least they’ll be able to figure out how to schedule the appointment for themselves.
So when the 15 year old oversleeps for his online class at 10 am, that’s on him. (And yes, it has happened more than once). He has to figure out how to make things right with his teacher and for the next while, isn’t allowed to set his own bedtime. When he’s back on track he’ll get that freedom back.
The 4th grader manages her own school schedule and assignments and shows up for her online meetings on time (bless her) and puts a sign on her door warning us not to come in her room when she’s in class. This week she missed one of her meetings and was stressing. I told her to message her teacher and work it out. She did and was able to join in with another group the next day. The ability to solve your own problems gives you confidence and power and that’s the gift I want to give to my kids.
The senior is like a caged tiger — wanting to be an adult with the freedom of an adult and bristling under these restrictions. We’ve had some ups and downs trying to navigate a compromise that allows him the freedom to game all night, but not be a selfish asshat all day while other people are working. I think we’ve achieved a truce, but when both parties were searching for any available flight to get the ingrate out of the house/escape from the worst parents ever it wasn’t pretty.
I’m finding in this time of quarantine, my last vital job has been rendered obsolete — cheerleader. Nothing to do, nowhere to go, and certainly nothing to cheer for. I’m proud of all of them, but we’re all sort of sitting around in the muck together. No purpose, no prospects. Except for Josh who is working his butt off from the crack of dawn until the middle of the night.
The graduate. He’s been done with classes for week, but took his online AP stats exam at 10pm last night (worldwide exam) and now his high school career is complete. :throws confetti in an empty room: Not quite the finish he imagined.
Doing my job well means that I no longer have a job. And as you’ve seen over and over again on my blog, a meaningful life has to have purpose. One of the struggles of quarantine is that a lot of that purpose has been stripped away. We are home with nothing to do outside of pursuing our own selfish interests. And that doesn’t make for a satisfying life. We will be fine, we’ll get through it, blah, blah, blah, but I’m acknowledging that this is hard. And I’m lacking the mental energy and motivation to find a new purpose.
It doesn’t help that as the rest of the world is opening up, we are heading into our time of natural quarantine here in the Middle East. Every summer we hit an emotional slump as it gets hotter and more humid than is bearable and we basically have to hibernate from June until September. We get cranky and sluggish and annoyed that there’s nothing to do and nowhere to go and those are years when we haven’t been locked up since the first week of March. Our do-nothing reserves are already depleted, so this summer is going to be interesting.
That’s the latest from here. Next steps are finding a flight for Carter to go back to the US so he can enlist in the Navy. Thankfully he’s had lots of practice traveling by himself and filling out his own paperwork, so he should be ready to go when the Navy calls. We think we can get him a flight around June 15th and we’ve had a few people offer support to take him in if his ship date is delayed.
Camille self portrait 
bread baking 
Cat house by Camille
A little quarantine creativity
