I'm thrilled to have Tessa Meyer Santiago at Letters to a Parent this week. She wrote about, among other things, a familiar feeling I've had as a mother, too. Kind of an identity crisis of sorts. It started when I had my first baby and, after a few days, couldn't shake the feeling that I was somehow waiting for her 'real' parents to pick her up pretty soon, just faking it until someone more qualified showed up. And then, later another epiphany emerged when I realized that my kids see me as That Central Person the way I saw my mom. Was I Grown-up enough to qualify for that? Ah, but Tessa says it so much better than I do:
I am simultaneously small Tessa, knobbly-kneed in green school uniform, and someone’s mother. The years run through me like it was yesterday, today and tomorrow at the same time...
I thought getting older meant I would suddenly be transformed into the competent, unruffled, self-assured adults who surrounded me as children–at least from my vantage point closer to the ground...
I am learning that, sometimes, it requires tremendous courage and nerve to simply show up, to be present in a particular day.
Check out the whole essay here. (It's a little longer than LTOP's usual posts but completely worth the extra minute or two.)
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Do you have a post about parenthood you'd like to see on Letters to a Parent? Would you like to tell us about an experience or lesson in your mothering/fathering learning curve? Or even a photo, poem, image that distills what parenting is to you? Send it, lovelies. Do. And, psst, pass it on.
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