It's Complicated

  "Mom, you're just weird!" The hostile sound of her voice pulled me out of my shopping induced coma. If it had been delivered by my child it would have included a couple of giggle at the end, one for each of us. The little drama that played out between the racks of clothing and the dressing room was painful to watch. As is my habit, I try to find someone in the story line with whom I can identify. This time it was both of them.

 "Oh," says mom helpfully, holding up a pair of white pants, "here they are in a size 6."

"What are you implying?" comes the sharp retort.

"Well, you don't want it too tight," Mom looks around at anything but her daughter when she speaks.

"I wear a 4 Mom." Mom stops for a minute. She can see the land mind, but she's not sure how to move her mouth without tripping the wire. Perhaps her choice of silence was the best.

"How about this color?" Mom holds up a fushia tank top.

"Where would I ever wear that Mom?"

"I would be nice under a black shirt or..." her daughter interrupts her.

"Why would I wear it under something?"

"You couldn't wear it by itself," Mom defends, "It's winter."

I head to the checkout with my own purchases and leave them there in their anger and misery. I want to tell the Mom that she has the strength to let go now, to trust that her job is mostly done. I want to tell the beautiful young lady that she has the power to be the bigger person. I don't of course, because I long ago learned the folly of unsolicited advice. I cannot help but think of my relationship with my own Mom. Out shopping trips together were our bonding time and our bond was made of barbed wire. I knew better than to speak to her in the tone used by the size 4 daughter, but our conversations although more diplomatic, were just as deadly.

I'm certainly not saying my daughter and I didn't go through some loving wars during her growing up years. I often tell people that her first sentence was, "Mom, you're not going to wear that are you?" I will say that I have never felt more proud than when she introduced me to her future mother in law as "my Mom and my best friend".

I'm carefully saving my best child rearing advice on the off chance that someone, either related or unrelated, will turn toward me someday with a question. Just in case that day never arrives I don't want to die with it in me, so here goes. Child rearing is simple compared to knowing when you're done. When our children are small we attempt to anticipate every danger and race ahead with pillows ready. Like loaded freight trains it takes us a very long time for us to come to a stop. Sometimes we just don't see the red light and just keep running full throttle right on through the warning gate of adulthood. You will hear the sound of the impending disaster in your adult child's voice if you listen. Woe be to the parent who ignores it more than once.