There is a wide range of opinions on when a child is a child no longer. Some say eighteen years old. Some think twenty-one. Minnesota has selected twenty-six for insurance purposes. But I’ve watched mothers in their eighties with sons in their sixties fussing over if they are getting enough to eat and enough rest. So it’s hard to say when full adulthood sets in.
My eldest just moved out for real this past spring. She is an adult on paper but yet still not adult enough to rent a car. Who makes up these crazy rules? She was ready and had prepared for a very long time and I wasn’t ready and had prepared for a very long time. She didn’t move far away. She can support herself. She has a job and is in graduate school and knows more about how her car works than I ever hope to know.
And I thought I was perfectly fine until I passed her empty room a week after the move. It looked like the scene in the original Grinch cartoon of the Who house after he steals everything. Everything was stripped bare. Just a few random thumbtacks on the wall and an old blue stain on the carpeting from the wax melter. Dings in the wall I hadn’t noticed. A curtain rod left behind. In the closet, the detritus of childhood. Things that don’t hold any special meaning for her but are the record of everything for me. Our dog walks in there three times a day and looks at me like, “Where IS she?”
Cue the sobbing. I did recover in a few days after seeing her new place and making up her new bed. And it helped that she has come home many times. Came home for our standard Sunday night Chinese takeout. Came to see her brother’s lacrosse game. Came over to get her favorite sweatshirt she left in the laundry room. She came home, and we walked the dog, and she even cleaned my vacuum cleaner one day because I don’t know how to take it apart. My mom gave her five extra avocadoes she had, and my daughter reacted as if it were a bag of gemstones. Her appreciation for everything has grown already.
Being a young adult in this era is hard. Harder than it was for my generation I think. Maybe everyone romanticizes their own era. The world is different now and their expectations as young adults are much different. But they are walking the tightrope of adult responsibility just the same. And while I miss her and the past and her exuberant energy and being privy to everything, adult children are pretty amazing.
She texts me more now. Asks for photos of her dog. I send them. We have tried to Facetime with the dog. He is having none of it. He wants the real deal or nothing.
One of my favorite recent text messages from her was along the lines of “Uh…couches are really expensive.” The actual message contained a well-placed and strong expletive, but you get the gist. And it’s true, couches are expensive. And avocadoes. And everything.
There is no protecting them from adult life. We eventually all have to take our turn waiting at the DMV. But getting the messages from adult children that being an adult is not always fun feels like an exciting, weird rite of passage for both of us.
So, I guess they are grown up when they feel done growing up. And anyone who is delighted over a free avocado is definitely an adult. I talk to my own mother nearly every day. She knows things that I don’t know yet, and it reminds me how very far my own children have to go in figuring it all out.
So, my advice to any and every family is no matter how your relationship is with your children before they leave the nest, get a dog. A cute irresistible dog. The dog will keep you company when they go. But more importantly, the kids will come home to see the dog. Because they will miss the dog most of all.
Jen Fortner is a freelance writer who enjoys asking friends and strangers far too many questions. She spends her spare time sitting in inclement weather watching youth sports, traveling, cooking, and searching for the very best baked goods. She lives in the Southwest Metro with her husband, three children and the most spoiled dog.