WHAT MAKES A FAMILY?

It’s six thirty am and everyone here is still asleep. Taylor leaves to go back to college in two hours.

For all of us Freshman parents we have had our kids home for the longest stretch since they departed and what will be the longest stretch of the college semester.

The “books” all tell you to watch out; your life and family is not going to be what it was. Be prepared as all sorts of “issues” will crop up and they will require a new set of skills to deal with them properly.

At the beginning of this whole process so many of us were worried about how we would get on without our kids. What would our daily lives look and feel like without these people that had not only been an integral part but many times the center of everything? Who would we be without them? Would we ever feel the same again? What would happen when they came home?

Most of the people I know who had been through it said by Christmas you are adjusted, they are adjusted and the bigger shock is sometimes they are returning as the rule-less people they have become to the household with rules that has learned to function without them.

In freshman land the things I thought and I think many of us thought would be problems have not turned out to be. So much like life.
Total aside last year at this time I made a list of all the things I was worried about, in the year ahead, some of them having to do with Taylor’s departure and a few other things. As you can imagine I have a tendency to worry. Anyway I found the list two days ago and not one of those things came to pass. The things I was worried about, like would I like my new apartment as much as my old one, are in fact non-issues as I much prefer the new one to the old one. And Taylor’s leaving has not been nearly as traumatic as I thought it would and life went on.

Yet the things that rocked my world like Blake’s death never even occurred to me.

Once again, reinforcing the concept I need so desperately to learn, worrying is a waste of time.

But meanwhile, back to the things many of us were worried about, well, they were a waste of time. We all survived, the kids survived, our lives went on and we found new ways to live and sometimes lives were more peaceful because as we know teenagers, especially college teenagers, can be an unruly lot.

For the most part their lives are chaotic, their internal lives are forming, their external ones are in flux, and they are not kids, yet as we know for the most part they are not adults either. They are truly betwixt and between, often leaving us feeling the same way.

They don’t want you. They do want you. They don’t need you. They need you desperately. They hate themselves for needing you, they are glad you are there when they do, but why do you have to call and bug them at the wrong times. They are all over the place.

One of the big issues that one hears about and I was of course needlessly fearful would crop up was how do you deal with these people who had a set of rules while they lived with you full time, yet now are used to living without rules at all? How do you cope? What kinds of havoc will this wreak on the household, and will you be able to have any control?

I actually geared myself up and because I am now used to not knowing where she is I was able to somehow just let it go. It was made easier as all of a sudden she didn’t feel the need to stay out all night as, well, she can. It’s amazing how that works. Once it’s not forbidden anymore it loses so much of its luster.

I was very careful not to plan family activities for her without asking. I did not to question where she was going or put restrictions on when she came home. I just sort of let her be.

There is no question some of the fights you had in high school are still versions of the ones you have once they’re in college, but they are way toned down. Since you have learned to live without them and have lost control you grapple with and hopefully succeed in just letting the small stuff fly. Yet they can still be snarky, shut down, demanding, in your face, out of your face, in your life, out the door, and there are always wet towels everywhere. What is it with teens and towels?

While they are not yet who they are going to be, which is as hard for them to deal with as it is for us, they are versions of who they will be and we have to learn to accept and love them as adults who may or may not be like us or the person we projected onto them when they were born.

At the end of our film LUCKY DUCKS, Madeline Levine, the author of PRICE OF PRIVILEGE says, “The most important thing in parenting is to see and love the child you have, not the child you imagine, as children are a gift.”

There are things about Taylor that will never change; she will not keep her room tidy, she never did and she never will and I have totally given up trying to get her to. I have learned to close the literal and proverbial door on that one.

The two weeks we were at home were OK, but far from perfect, I’m sure they were better than some peoples’ and worse than others. For much of the last week we were all so taken down by jet lag the only expectations any of us really held were could we sleep past four and get through the day without a five- hour nap.

But I think the bigger issue in all this freshman fear is how does one keep the family together once one of the major members is only a part-time member and how do you assure they will want to stay around in whatever way is appropriate? But to answer that question, one needs to answer this one: what makes a good family?

I have to constantly ask this, examine it and stick it under the microscope of my mind as I only have idealized versions. I have the sixties sitcom in my head and I work overtime trying to make it a reality show. I suppose it’s not an accident I ended up writing TV and films; if I write enough happy endings I will get one for myself in there too.

I don’t mean to complain here and right now with Haiti there is this feeling “what do I have to complain about?” This always happens in times of disaster or in the face of others’ real adversity. And while there is truth to it, the horrors of Haiti don’t take away the fact that we have to get through our lives and days and try and make them work out as well as we can. And adversity can come in many forms, not everything is a tsunami or an earthquake but sometimes it feels that way to the ones experiencing it and that doesn’t make it any less real.

I don’t know what a family is because I never had one as a child and as I have become an adult the whole thing is such a train wreck. I work 24/7 trying to make this little foursome of mine into my TV version of what life should be.

I know many things that family is not. Family is not, in my case my mother, turning on you when you get a divorce, siding with your ex, despite the fact she spent five years telling you to walk out of the marriage. I know family has loyalty in the mix, and keeping your word and someone always having your back. Something I have rarely experienced in my life– not never, but rarely. A small amount in the early years from my mother and in the case of my father, while there is détente, there is not real closeness and for many reasons there never will be. For instance, I tell him little about my life and share few secrets, this is born out of habit as much of anything and I’m not sure in the end he really cares, so for me that indicates a lack of real family. Family are the people you feel safe to share your secrets with.

So what does that have to do with the kids being home and the issues we are dealing with and how do we stay together while beginning and ultimately totally living separately?

What is a family and why do I sit up nights like last night trying to untangle the Gordian knot that is sometimes Taylor to try and make it work?

For many reasons I am not going to divulge certain things – and you know for me that is a lot as I am usually willing to do it. But although she suffered through me having a movie camera on her for two years and now she is the centerpiece of this blog, she is a young adult and there are certain things in her life that I feel should remain private and out of reach. And many of them she keeps out of reach from me, perhaps because of the above and perhaps, as I have learned, that is who she is.

But I have learned of late, through digging and prying and asking my friends questions, many other freshmen are going through the same things: while their kids are physically present, they are sort of secrets behind closed doors.

How do you get close to someone who doesn’t tell you who they are? Now I don’t want to get fifty emails saying, “Who are you to pry? Why should she tell you anything? She needs her privacy you needy, nosy over-involved mother.” Of course she needs her privacy. But kids this age complain a lot about how their parents don’t get them. “You don’t understand me, you don’t know who I am” is an often heard complaint.

My response to this is always, “How do I know who you are if you don’t tell me? If something is really bothering you, maybe I can lend an ear and some experience or just help you untangle the knotted parts.”

They of course are terrified if they come clean you will criticize: this tends to be a phase in life where “How was your evening?” will be answered with “Why do you have to pick on my friends all the time?”

So how do you get through to these kids at this stage when they shut themselves up tight yet underneath it all want to come out and connect?

How do you get them to tell you who they are, offer succor that doesn’t come out sounding like criticism and let them know you are there and, like Madeline says, love them for who they are? Sometimes it takes a lot of effort on your part to shut up about certain things. It’s a huge juggling act and one many of us are not well rehearsed at.

Since I was a child I always felt it was my duty to make my mother happy. When she was sad and she often was, I could make her laugh, I would dance and sing and do routines. When her heart was broken by a man I felt it was my duty through my humor and devotion to glue it back together. It might be why I’m funny or being funny might be what got me through.

She once said to me, “It’s lucky you’re funny, I don’t know if I would love you as much if you weren’t.” I had my work orders from an early age and I did them well, until I didn’t and then I was banished from the kingdom. It’s more complicated than that but for the purposes of this that will suffice.

The funny has paid me well, and it’s my favorite personality trait. But the flip side of funny is maudlin– ask any funny person, so that plays a part in it all as well.

When I feel anyone around me is not happy, I always target in: what’s wrong, what can I do? I somehow feel like it’s my job to cheer up the world and especially those I love.

When I detect a problem I am not always the most diplomatic of people. I surge right in like Anderson Cooper to a disaster zone.

I pry, I dig, I need to know, if I know I can help, if I can help then I can cope, If I can cope it’s under control, if it’s under control it will be alright, if everything is alright then I’m a good person and have saved the day and order will be returned to all.

Yet while I need to know – Taylor prefers another angle. While I pry, she hides, the more I question the more she evades, the more she evades, the more shut out I feel. The more shut out I feel the more it reminds me of my mother, the more it reminds me of my mother the more frightened I become I’m losing my family, so I plunge my shovel in deeper and the beat goes on.

The night before she went back to school Taylor and I did this dance, I detected something wasn’t OK, she didn’t want to talk, I pried, she hid and on it went until we were fighting. Then finally I quoted her something I read in the New York Times that day. It had touched me and summed up exactly what I think family really is.

It was in the wedding vows column by Lois Smith Brady. You can always tell when Lois does that column because they are without doubt the best.

Sunday’s featured bride Erika Tranatal said about her new husband: “There are people in your life who you’re just comfortable with. They can stand next to you and not say anything, but you feel better. In my life, there are only three people like that: my mother, my father and Lucas.”

I repeated this to Taylor and told her that is what I wished for for her. That she felt that way about us and when the time was right she would find the man who would fill that need for her as well.

She was not in a good mood; she responded that it was always all about me.

Can be, but not at that moment. I said, “So not. My ship has sailed there; I never had that with my parents and never will. I have it with Glenn, but I want you to have it with us too.”

She went to the place Guru Larry calls The Cone of Silence. As much as I like to give Larry credit for things, it comes from GET SMART but Larry uses it and it fits so well.

So she went into the cone, I made no progress, it was getting late and believe it or not I am either learning when to give up or losing energy the older I get, so I told her I loved her, and I did the adult thing, I went to my bed and cried.

About forty minutes later pitter-patter into my room, a tap on the shoulder– it was Taylor requesting me to come into her room and just lie with her. So I did and for a change I didn’t say anything. We just lay there in the dark and eventually fell asleep.

She was living Erika’s quote, she was showing me she did feel that way about me, I could just be there and not say anything and make her feel better, even if I didn’t know what I was making her feel better about and sometimes that didn’t matter.

And that is what family is, it’s not always knowing the details, it’s sometimes just shutting up and being there for someone else and making them feel safe by your presence. It’s not always singing or dancing or prying into the recesses of their psyches. Sometimes it’s just being you and letting them be them and just being silently together.

It’s loving someone for who they are even if you don’t always understand who they might be and accepting at that moment especially at this age they often times don’t know enough themselves to tell you.

FRESHMAN MOM

P.S. I figure if you do it long enough – they will eventually deliver the goods!!!!