BLOG

Being a Mom of Adult Children

Share Share
The first commandment in the Torah is pru urvu, commonly translated as “be fruitful and multiply.” Many of the young couples in my life have been doing an excellent job with this commandment, giving birth to a bumper crop of little ones in the past year.
 
I’m always thrilled to hear of new Jewish babies being born. It makes me happy to see our people rebuilding itself, two generations after the Holocaust. This is especially true when those babies help expand the population of Israel.
 
As a mother, I’m way past the stage of diapers and preschool. I’m even past the stage of stormy adolescence and driving lessons. My children are young adults and it’s just my husband and me at home most of the time now.
 
When you can’t leave the house without a ton of gear or you can’t go to the bathroom without a kid coming along or at least talking to you through the door or you can’t get enough sleep because your seven-year-old is vomiting every 30 minutes or your daughter’s friends are being mean to her again, you think your life will always be like that.
 
Then your kids grow up and move away and parenting becomes a whole different ball game. Because being a mother to adult children means:
 
Not living with your children anymore. I know this sounds obvious, but until it happens to you, it’s hard to imagine how you’ll feel when the reality hits that your children no longer share your home.
 
Being able to go to the homes of your children for dinner or for Shabbat. Or having them treat you to dinner out.
 
Trying harder to find ways to give to your children. You never stop wanting to do things for your children. When your kids are under your roof, they always need something. Once they move out, giving to them is not as simple. But the desire to nurture them doesn’t go away. As the Talmud says, “More than the calf wants to suckle, the cow wants to nurse.”
 
Going to grownup movies with your kids. We used to have family movie night on Tuesdays. It seemed like a decade or more that we watched movies with talking animals. Now my adult children can enjoy the same films as I do. And sometimes they even buy the popcorn.
 
Learning what it really means to pray for your kids. The saying “Little kids, little problems. Big kids, big problems,” isn’t always true, of course. But it is true that the ordinary life problems of adult children can be hugely weighty, requiring tons of extra effort in prayer.
 
Getting real help from your kids. Sometimes, my children know more than I do about a problem and how to solve it. Often it involves technology. But not always. When my husband sat shiva recently for his father, may he rest in peace, our adult children were a tremendous source of emotional and practical help.
 
Loving from a distance. Sometimes, we don’t see our adult children for weeks at a time. Or months. Or, in some case, years. It’s harder to sustain relationships when you spend so little time together. It’s also hard to wrap your brain around the fact that the child you once tucked in and said Shema with every night for years now lives 6000 miles away and you can only hug her once in a blue moon.
 
Standing back and admiring your children. At some point, your children transition in your eyes from being a reflection of you to being their whole, unique selves, separate from you. And it’s like meeting them for the first time.
 
Finally telling your children things they were once too young to know. When your kids are kids, there are some family history stories you don’t tell them. And then you can.
 
Crying. Tza'ar gidul banim is a Talmudic expression that refers to the pain of raising children. That specific mama pain doesn’t end when your children leave home. We still cry over our adult children, and sometimes the pain comes from knowing there isn’t anything more we can do. We raised them the best we could. The rest is out of our hands.
 
Realizing the passage of time. Eventually, adult children leave your home, finish their educations, get real jobs, move far away, get married, have children of their own. When they happen one at a time, these changes are just life. But then you realize that most of your friends, even the ones you clearly recall sitting next to in fourth grade, are now grandparents. And you feel like the past two or three decades of child-rearing just flew by, even though, as you were living through them, it seemed like they would never end.
 
Standing under the chuppah as your oldest daughter marries an honorable young man you already like and will grow to love. Really and truly a highlight of parenting.
 
Being grateful for the experience of giving birth and raising children. And watching the next generation take over, while you put your feet up for a bit.
 
---
 
Have something to add? We'd love to hear from you. Please comment below to share.
 
For more great Jewish content, please subscribe in the right hand column. Once you confirm your subscription, you'll get an email whenever new content is published to the Jewish Values Online blog.
 
Any comments below have been contributed by third parties through social media. Jewish Values Online does not moderate comments and assumes no responsibility for the opinions expressed therein. In case of abuse, click the grey arrow in the upper right corner of any comment to report it.
 
 

Share Share

 
 
 
 
 
Jewish Values Online

Home | Search For Answers | About | Origins | Blog Archive 

Copyright 2020 all rights reserved. Jewish Values Online
 
N O T I C E
THE VIEWS EXPRESSED IN ANSWERS PROVIDED HEREIN ARE THOSE OF THE INDIVIDUAL JVO PANEL MEMBERS, AND DO NOT
NECESSARILY REFLECT OR REPRESENT THE VIEWS OF THE ORTHODOX, CONSERVATIVE OR REFORM MOVEMENTS, RESPECTIVELY.