Heidi – Washington State
It was the summer of 2018 when I took this picture and posted that reflection on Facebook. Fortunately, the idea of those “last time” parenting moments was fresh in my mind during the summer of 2020.
On March 13, 2020, we learned that schools in Washington would shut down for “6 weeks” in an attempt to limit the spread of COVID-19. (The school closure ended up lasting nearly a year.) While my teacher heart was breaking, my momma heart was panicking. My daughter was attending college in the other Washington (DC). For her entire life, she battled what her doctor called “brutal asthma” and the thought of her contracting COVID-19 kept me up at night.
Around the same time, her college campus shut down, cancelling all planned activities and events, and COVID rates were rising fast in DC. Her 21st birthday was just around the corner – St. Patrick’s Day – and probably for longer than I would have deemed appropriate, she’d been looking forward to bar hopping dressed in green to celebrate both her Irish heritage and her ascent to the legal drinking age.
On March 15 or 16, DC announced that it would be shutting down, essentially cancelling my daughter’s bar hopping birthday plans. Here’s where my momma’s heart panicked and took over: without consulting her, I booked my daughter a flight home and instructed her to be at DCA around 6am the day after she turned 21. Not only did that mean she would be packing to come home (for an indefinite amount of time) ON her birthday, but it also likely meant traveling with a hangover.
It wasn’t until one of our daily walks a few months later that it occurred to me – when I booked her that flight home, I had experienced one of those “last time” parenting moments. I had committed my last overt act of parenting. You know the kind: where you just tell your kid what to do?
I marked this last overt act of parenting by apologizing to my daughter and telling her that it would be the “last time” I told her what to do.
My role as a parent shifted that day and I didn’t miss it. I moved from an active parenting role to a more advisory role; a supporting role. No longer do I direct my kids’ days, nor do I make decisions for them or tell them what to do.
This time, I didn’t miss it.