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EMILY P. FREEMAN

What it Feels
Like When Your
Kids Are
Growing Up
Of all the gradual things in this life, watching
as your kids grow up is perhaps one of the
most curious. It can also be a difficult or
delightful experience, depending on the day,
my mood, the state of their room, and the
weather.

But bearing witness to their growing up is

proving to be essential to my own spiritual
formation in ways I never new to expect.

For the past few years, I’ve been looking for a

line they tell me doesn’t exist. But like the
gathering moments of darkness in
morning just between the release of the
light, there is a time of sunrise.

You can see it on your phone if you check.

One moment the sun is not visible and the

next, you need to pull out your sunglasses. Yes,
it’s gradual. But there is still a moment. It is
distinct. You can see it with your eyes and feel
it in your bones.

Something has shifted. We’ve crossed from darkness

into light.

Unlike the sunrise, I can’t check my phone for

the moment when my little kids became big
kids but it’s rearranging me. They were babies
then toddlers then kindergarten age. We made
it all the way through elementary school with
the twins and now one more year of middle
school.

See, I’ve already passed it.

I’ve been carrying that change for a few years

now. I haven’t known what it would mean to
name it, to point to it and say there. This is why
you have a shadow of joy and questions slung over your
heart.

Transition is like that. They tell me it keeps

going into your 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s. Each decade
has it’s own set of transitions.

I turn 40 next month and it’s strange to sit in

this place between the decade when my
children were toddlers and the one when they
will graduate from college. I stand here with
my back turned on those days, in many ways;
facing the future while holding the past. I’m
still clumsy with the weight of it. It’s an
awkward load to bear.

And so while there isn’t a moment to point

to, I think I may have found a hint.

It was the end of 5th grade and the twins had

their first school dance, the kind where the
cafeteria windows are covered up with black
paper and parents aren’t allowed inside, only
teachers.

As we walked up to the school building, other

boys and girls rushed past us to push their way
through the doors. My girls quickly found
friends and, eager to see what their regular
public school cafeteria looked like transformed
into a dance floor, they pushed their way in,
too, and didn’t look back, the door swiftly
closing behind them, blocked by a smiling 5th
grade teacher.

That was the line, right there between the

painted blue cinder block hallway and the
suped-up public school cafeteria.

The line was the moment they didn’t look

back.

I vaguely remember a surprised oh releasing

from my lips, but after that I had no words.

I turned around, my eyes stinging with tears I

didn’t know to prepare for. I caught the eye of
another mom and we may have walked back
to our cars together, the silence between us
holding all the words we couldn’t say out loud
yet.

We didn’t yet know what had just happened.

But we had crossed over a line.

Last week I took a break from my work while

the kids where in school and went to grab
lunch. Instead of going straight home, I
parked my car in a lot, faced the field, pulled
out the turkey and avocado to eat, and
promptly burst into tears.

As it turned out, I was parked in the lot in

front of the grocery store where I used to shop
when the twins were first born. The field is
mostly a parking lot now, but the sky looks the
same there and it sent me weeping. Sobbing.
Shocked.

It’s been over two years since that night at the

dance and I’ve only just now begun to find the
words for what it feels like when your kids are
growing up.

Well I guess that’s not quite right. I can’t speak

to what it feels like in general. I can only tell
you what it feels like for me.

It feels like torn lace, like smoke, like wedding

mints melting on your tongue.

It feels like distraction, like worry, like chasing

but not-quite-catching or trying to remember
but seeing only through foggy panes.

It feels like wider hips and thinner lips and

laugh lines starting to show up around curved
edges.

It feels like biting my cheeks when I see a

younger mom with her baby because I don’t
want to be that old lady who says hold them
tight, they grow so fast, blah, blah, blah.

But that’s what I’ll think even though I know

better than to say it.

And the thing is, she’ll think it one day, too.

It’s what moms do.

Those days were hard, hard, hard. I know this.

But they are also gone.

It feels like I won a ticket for the best seat in

the house, but I was gone too long during
intermission and missed part of the show. Or
did I sleep through it? Or maybe I saw it all
but just forgot a lot of the details.

It feels like both sorrow and joy.

It feels like a lump in my throat.

It feels like freedom, too.

And sometimes that part is hard for a mom to

bear. Because now we have a little space to
think, even though there’s still a lot to do.

They are becoming themselves now and if

we’re paying attention, so are we. This is good
and right. But can also feel confusing. You mean
we’re still growing up even though we’re grown?

Yes, that’s right.

So maybe I’ll write another book or five.

Maybe I’ll try something new, learn a skill I
never had the moxie for, take up dancing.

Welcome to mid-life, mom.

Now my kids are the big kids, my kids are the

ones who watch the other people’s little kids.
All three of my kids have feet bigger than
mine.

I hold on to the hope that there is still a lot

ahead of us. I can hear the moms who have
come before me saying it to me now. Your kids
are still small! They say it because theirs are
even older.

I know, I know.

It’s true, our youngest still plays with cars on

the floor, still wants me to watch him jump.
But the days are numbered. They always have
been, but the numbers are more obvious now
that there are more behind me than before
me.

And so I stand on tip-toe and peer into our

future and I see good things, I can’t help it. In
many ways, I suppose I’ve crossed the line
already. But I also know there will be other
lines to come.

Aren’t we always standing on a line between

what was and what will be?

We are all in the midst of our own transitions,

our own acceptance, our own becoming. Let’s
be kind with our fellow moms and not expect
them to enjoy a stage that we ourselves
couldn’t fully embrace until later.

Let’s be the kind of friends who walk beside

even if we’re further along or behind. Let’s be
that for each other and let’s be kind to
ourselves as well.

All we have is this day, this great right now.

Let’s look around, let’s be all here if we can,
and give ourselves permission to grieve what
we need to grieve and to not be afraid.

I'm all about creating space for

your soul to breathe so you
can discern your next right
thing. If you want to begin to
cultivate quiet but don't know
where to start, sign up to receive
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Filed Under: motherhood

Comments

Bill Krafft says

March 17, 2017 at 10:38 AM

Thanks for your insights. I read this

and thought of Cleopas in Luke 24.
Sometimes, I reach what I think is my
destination, but He doesn’t see it that
way. He wants me to go further. As I
look back to the road that I have just
walked, I realize now that there were
important things happening to me
that I failed to sufficiently recognize
at the time. I now realize that my
“heart was burning.”

May you be blessed on your journey.

There is still so much more that you
are meant to do.

Bill

Reply

Wendy says
April 6, 2019 at 1:59 PM

What a great way of putting it.

Beautiful.

Reply

Mona Flynn says

March 17, 2017 at 10:46 AM

What is still ahead of you are the

equally surprising moments where
they cross back over those lines to
lead and support you with not just a
reflection of how you poured yourself
into them, but the inherent gifts they
were born to give. Every stage of
parenting is a joy and even though
the hard places are filled with
bittersweet lessons for all of us, our
perspective of these lines will make a
great difference to allowing them and
ourselves the space to accept and to
trust God’s continued guidance. You
are a wonderful mother. Keep doing
all the great things you are doing, and
keep finding the ways that will allow
you to be present and enjoy all the
moments!

Reply

Amy Canby says

March 17, 2017 at 11:05 AM

You just gave what’s in my heart, the

words.

Hubby and I visited our oldest son at

college yesterday, taking him out to
lunch since his work schedule made it
impractical for him to come home for
spring break. After a lunch with us
hanging on his every mature,
philosophical, thought-provoking
word, now shrouded in overgrown
mustache and chin whiskers, we
watched him walk away and slip back
out of our day to day life for another
few months. We drove away, both of
us wiping tears off our checks,
thankful for his parting words that life
is great right now. It’s so true that in
parenting we walk a continual path
of letting go, the emotions sometimes
overwhelming. At my point (a decade
past you ?) I’ve started to realize, the
only way to celebrate these moments
of seeing our children growing into
the lives we’ve hoped for them, is with
tears in our eyes.

Thank you for this beautiful

description of motherhood.

Reply

Courtney says
March 17, 2017 at 1:39
PM

thank you for this! wisdom from

moms “ahead of me” is SUCH a
gift!

Reply

Joelle says
March 17, 2017 at 11:07 AM

Emily,

All your words have nuzzled deep

into my heart this morning,
partnering close with my own
unsettled emotions. My 15 and 11
year old keep walking into their
future; the future I want for them, yet
the future I want to hold them from,
if only for small spaces of time before
they keep moving forward. My heart
is happy and torn and all weird
inside. I never realized this is how I
would feel. You cried in a parking lot
and I sobbed in the middle of my
kitchen. Grief for the living never
occurred to me until this year. So I
have my moments too, and then
other days I enjoy the freedom of
being a mom of older children and
going and doing. Life is strange this
way. It’s nice to know I’m in good
company. Thank you!

Reply

Kim R. says
March 17, 2017 at 11:08 AM

I’ll never forget that moment when

my son walked into the room and I
simply stared at him, wondering
where my little boy had gone. Oh,
but when they are grown? What
wonderful friends they are to me and
what joy to be around them. And the
beauty of grandchildren? I can’t
even… The absolute wonder of
being present when your baby has a
baby. Simply amazing. The transition
between childhood and adulthood
comes with so many feelings, but
once you are through it, I can testify
it is a wonderful time of life!! Hubby
and I are thoroughly enjoying our
grown children, the grandies, and our
empty nest. Enjoy, momma. Hug
them tight, love them much. Soon
they’ll be grown and be your very
best friends.

Reply

Donna says
March 17, 2017 at 11:08 AM