Understanding and acceptance are lessons taught slowly
5.21.09
Alex, Claire, and I will be going away for the Memorial Day weekend, but Sean cautioned us a few days ago that he probably won’t be going — he has friends here whom he’d like to see over the weekend. But before he made up his mind, I cautioned him to make sure that they actually will be around town and able to get together. I didn’t want this to turn into another “graduation dinner.”
That story goes like this: my parents came to Sean’s graduation from high school last year, and we had reservations to go out to dinner afterward — all six of us. Well, after the ceremony, Sean informed me that he and a group of his friends were all going off to have dinner on State Street instead. I was a little hurt (and, frankly, a little embarrassed that he’d pulled this — my parents wouldn’t be spending their grandson’s graduation dinner with him), but in my attempt to be a cool, understanding mom who respected her son’s right to his independence, I went along with it.
Well, it turns out that all of Sean’s friends either had been misinformed about their freedom to run around State Street after the ceremony, or they had been doing that trademark teenager thing where they just think they’re free to go run around, but actually, their parents have very definite other plans for them. Every one of them had family dinners and things that they needed to do, but Sean did not become aware of this until after we had already left for the restaurant. And that’s how it came to be that he ate dinner on State Street — alone — while the rest of his family celebrated his high school graduation without him.
Can you tell that I’m still a wee bit irritated about this? Maybe I should have put my foot down and insisted that he go with us, but I was practicing for what I knew would come all too soon: his nearly full independence from us.
Anyway, I didn’t want a repeat of graduation night: Sean just thinking that there were going to be lots of friends around this weekend, when maybe the reality — which he perhaps hadn’t been let in on yet, or hadn’t inquired about and was merely assuming — was that all of them were going out of town, too, or had family reunions or picnics or other whatnots to go to. So, I told him to find out for sure, and if no one was going to be around, then I wanted him to go with us. I think I sensed that the lesson of a year ago had been learned, and he agreed.
Now it’s turned out that plenty of people say, at least, that they’ll be here, so he’s planning to stay home. Again, I’m a little hurt. I’d like to see him some more. I’ve had so many unavoidable things on my calendar since he’s been home that I’ve been able to catch up with him only in little bits, and I was really looking forward to some leisurely down time when we could really talk.
But, this is the way it is, and this is the way it will continue to be. Alex, who is usually quite adamant about full attendance on trips like this one, seems to have reached that sweet spot of understanding and acceptance well ahead of me. He knows that Kahlil Gibran was right: children “come through you but not from you, and though they are with you, yet they belong not to you.”
That story goes like this: my parents came to Sean’s graduation from high school last year, and we had reservations to go out to dinner afterward — all six of us. Well, after the ceremony, Sean informed me that he and a group of his friends were all going off to have dinner on State Street instead. I was a little hurt (and, frankly, a little embarrassed that he’d pulled this — my parents wouldn’t be spending their grandson’s graduation dinner with him), but in my attempt to be a cool, understanding mom who respected her son’s right to his independence, I went along with it.
Well, it turns out that all of Sean’s friends either had been misinformed about their freedom to run around State Street after the ceremony, or they had been doing that trademark teenager thing where they just think they’re free to go run around, but actually, their parents have very definite other plans for them. Every one of them had family dinners and things that they needed to do, but Sean did not become aware of this until after we had already left for the restaurant. And that’s how it came to be that he ate dinner on State Street — alone — while the rest of his family celebrated his high school graduation without him.
Can you tell that I’m still a wee bit irritated about this? Maybe I should have put my foot down and insisted that he go with us, but I was practicing for what I knew would come all too soon: his nearly full independence from us.
Anyway, I didn’t want a repeat of graduation night: Sean just thinking that there were going to be lots of friends around this weekend, when maybe the reality — which he perhaps hadn’t been let in on yet, or hadn’t inquired about and was merely assuming — was that all of them were going out of town, too, or had family reunions or picnics or other whatnots to go to. So, I told him to find out for sure, and if no one was going to be around, then I wanted him to go with us. I think I sensed that the lesson of a year ago had been learned, and he agreed.
Now it’s turned out that plenty of people say, at least, that they’ll be here, so he’s planning to stay home. Again, I’m a little hurt. I’d like to see him some more. I’ve had so many unavoidable things on my calendar since he’s been home that I’ve been able to catch up with him only in little bits, and I was really looking forward to some leisurely down time when we could really talk.
But, this is the way it is, and this is the way it will continue to be. Alex, who is usually quite adamant about full attendance on trips like this one, seems to have reached that sweet spot of understanding and acceptance well ahead of me. He knows that Kahlil Gibran was right: children “come through you but not from you, and though they are with you, yet they belong not to you.”
