Still a Mom--No Matter Where Kids Are

Nobody had to tell me that Monday was the longest day of the year. For me, it seemed like an eternity.

The summer solstice marks the beginning of summer, but in my case it also signals the end of another season of parenthood. For most mothers, the empty-nest syndrome occurs once in a lifetime--once for each child, anyway. But my two little birds fly away every year to spend the summer with their father in Ohio, leaving the part of me that answers to “Mom” wandering around at loose ends.

No matter how much I anticipate it--and by May, believe me, I’m counting the days--the transition is always abrupt.

I spent Sunday the way I usually do, simultaneously answering questions (“No, you can’t use your umbrella for a satellite dish. Not even if you line it with aluminum foil”), aborting arguments (“If you can’t do it together without fighting, you’ll have to take turns”), fixing meals, tripping over skateboards and shoveling clothes into the washer like a fireman loading coal on a steam locomotive. Please, let me make it through one more day of this, I begged silently.

The next evening, after handing my offspring over to a flight attendant who seemed all too nonchalant about the fact that these were children traveling--and changing planes-- alone , I hurried home only to find myself sitting in the middle of the house, listening to the refrigerator hum. The stereo I had complained about night after night was silent, and the dirty socks had disappeared from the floor. The house that seemed uncomfortably small months before when I couldn’t find refuge from a two-hour “Jetsons” TV special had been transformed into a vast estate.

For 10 months, I never seemed to have enough time to do it all. Now, suddenly, I had too much time, and I didn’t feel like doing anything.

Nine years ago, their father and I decided to follow our own parental advice: If we couldn’t do it together without fighting, we’d have to take turns. Like children, we wanted those turns to be even-steven, but we soon realized ours weren’t the only demands on our children’s time. They had school, they had friends, they had other relatives. So, like adults, we did in divorce what we were unable to do in marriage: we compromised.

By nature, compromises are less than ideal, and this one is no exception. For the children, life with parents who live 2,500 miles apart means that wherever they are, they’re always missing someone. For their father, it means hearing about band concerts and Halloween costumes over scratchy long-distance lines, never seeing them. When there are tears after a disastrous day at school, he can’t wipe them.

And for me, solo parenting means never being able to say, “Go ask your father.” If I discover at 10 p.m. that we have only a tablespoon of milk left, I can’t send anyone else to the store for another jug. It also means smiling--mouth shut--when I hear about how dad feeds them Pepsi and doughnuts for breakfast when he runs out of milk.

The one fringe benefit is that if I can somehow make it from September to June, I get some time off. But after being “on” so intensely, it’s always difficult to make the switch. It takes about a week each year to realize that I can stop buying Oreos and hot dogs at the supermarket and that I don’t have any reason to hurry home at night.

By the Fourth of July, the silence in the house no longer makes me nervous. And by the beginning of August, I’m settling into my new routine, only to glance at the calendar and panic when I realize the peace and quiet will only last a few more weeks.

On Monday, however, I wasn’t ready to think about any of that. Until I knew the children had been safely delivered to their dad, I was still an active mother, however passive I felt.

I looked at the clock; where were they by now? Dallas? No, they were scheduled to land there two hours ago. So they should be on the way to Cincinnati. Or Philadelphia, if they didn’t make the switch. Oh, well, I’ve got a friend there. I should have given them the number, just in case.

As part of my annual ritual, I got up and closed the doors to their bedrooms. For some reason, it’s easier if I don’t go in there, especially at first. I’m supposed to, though; the Cabbage Patch Kids stayed home this year, and I’ve been deputized by my 10-year-old daughter to give them their mandatory daily hugs.

I took Weird Al out of the stereo and replaced him with Bobby McFerrin, the tape my 12-year-old son can’t stand. I made pizza-for-one and ate it in the living room--against the rules, but who was going to complain?

In the bathroom, I took a quick look around. My daughter forgot her toothbrush. Should I send it? No, she’ll have another by the time it gets there. I put the Band-Aids away and the lid back on the shampoo. I soaked decadently in the tub, and for once, nobody knocked on the door and asked me to please hurry.

At 8:30, I turned on the show we always watch together and waited for the phone to ring. By a quarter to nine, they’d be off the plane and hugging their father and stepmother. A few minutes after that--they promised!--they would call and let me know they had arrived safely.

By 9:30, already early morning in Ohio, I picked up the receiver for a moment, just to make sure there was a dial tone. Fifteen minutes later, I called. After 15 rings, I hung up. At 10 I was reaching for the phone to try again when it finally rang.

“Hello?”

“Uh, is this my mom?” asked my faraway son.

“Yes.”

“Well, we’re sorry, but when we were at the airport, we just sort of forgot about you. But we’re home now, and everything’s OK.”

Home? Suddenly my empty house seemed even emptier.

“OK, honey, you get some sleep. Thanks for calling.”

“Good night, Mom,” he said.

“Good night.”

I turned out the light and tried to sleep, doing my best not to worry about whether their dad had remembered to buy milk. My turn would come again soon enough.

And that’s, uh, Uncle Harry

Does your family have a black sheep? Someone you would just as soon not invite to the reunion or would prefer to leave out of the family album? Tell us about the person you would rather not be related to. Or if you are the one they love to hate, tell us how you feel about not fitting in.

Separate checks or community property?

How does your family divvy up the money--and the household bills? Do you have his and hers checkbooks? Is it all marked “Ours”? If one of you earns considerably more than the other, does that affect your family financial system? Do you fight over money? Tell us how it works--or doesn’t work--for you.

A baby at last

Your parents have been waiting for grandchildren for what seems like most of your life. And finally, now that you are in your 30s (or older), you have decided to stop being the baby of the family and have one of your own. The baby-boom generation has postponed procreation longer than any of its predecessors. If you are part of the trend, we would like to know why you waited, and what difference you believe the delay has made in your life and your child’s.

Send your comments to Family Life, Orange County Life, The Times, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, Calif. 92626. Please include your phone number so that a reporter may call you. To protect your privacy, Family Life does not publish correspondents’ last names.