No matter what your relationship is with your young adult child, conversations about complicated or sensitive topics are wild cards. The relationship I enjoy with my 19-year-old is blessedly close, and we talk daily about all manner of subjects. We see eye-to-eye on most of life's "big issues," but we also give each other the space for different perspectives and learn from each other constantly. (Well, at least I know I learn from her; I would leave it to her to comment on how much she actually learns from me...) Despite our closeness, though, or perhaps because of it, some conversations are fraught with emotion and tension. I find myself dancing around the issue, sending little messages in what I believe to be supportive bottles, opening doors and windows to invite her in. In my lesser moments, I push too hard, frustrated by her resistance or my own need to push forward -- issue to conversation to plan to resolution -- and almost invariably find myself with one of those doors I so lovingly opened getting firmly closed in my face. This summer, a topic kept coming up that clearly needed deeper thought and discussion, and as the school year approaches, would need a plan of action. Every time, though, we would get no further than restating the issue. I knew that her angst and anxiety was holding her back from tackling the issue head-on, and I knew that I had to keep the reins tight on my own angst and anxiety and wish (need?) to help her solve it. Meanwhile, the summer floated on...
This past weekend, though, we meandered into breaking the seal. The issue at hand involved a complex dance involving decisions to be made about major/minor, and a fairly new plan to participate in a specific program in Paris in her junior year. Travel had long been on her radar, but a longstanding love-hate relationship with French classes made the idea of committing to such a path a bit surprising. True, much of the beauty of a liberal arts education is the ability to change plans, add travel, and delay the formal major/minor declarations. My daughter, however, is a planner. If she could lay her life out in a color-coded spreadsheet, she would be delighted. The messiness of exploration is at once exciting and completely daunting to her (and certainly was to me), and she was feeling the pressure mount. When she wasn’t wrapped up in the myriad iterations of course combinations, she seemed to have jumped into the Paris plan with both pieds. She decorated her dorm room with stunning, romantic photos of the city, ate every American made baguette and croissant with a wonderment about how much better they would taste in a Parisian cafe or along the Seine. She listened to French pop music on Spotify. For my part, I set my Apple Watch face to a photo of the Eiffel Tower, devoted 10 minutes of every morning to my Duolingo lesson, and devoted my motherly enthusiasm to supporting her new Parisian dream. And yet...
...there was something there, crouching in the background, peering around the corners of thought and conversation. My mom radar, not foolproof but fairly well honed at this point in my parenting tenure, told me something wasn't quite right. Whiffs of angst, hints of anxiety, quiet avoidance of making firmer academic plans, drive-by mentions of fearing what she might not be able to fit into her academic and travel plans infiltrated our summer chill. Direct conversations brought up by yours truly were firmly shut down. Until this weekend, that is, when I found myself staring out the window at the first glimpse of Tropical Storm Henri (ironically named, n’est-ce pas?), and envisioning my rainy day-loving daughter enjoying a study abroad moment in a cozy Irish pub with her Dublin-bound best friend. Without thinking, I popped my head into her room and shared the image with her. “Paris is great, but picture this…” Her eyes sparkled, and she bounced joyously with the thought of how much fun that might be.
As it turns out, that moment was all it took. No mothering magic, just a combination of a random thought and good timing, but it triggered a conversation. We talked. She shared her fears. The bottom line was that she really did not want to pursue the program in Paris but felt beholden to the idea because it had been talked up to such a degree that changing course, she feared, would be a disappointment at best and a failure at worst. Nothing could be further from the truth, of course, but that was not how it appeared to her. Finally, she took a deep breath and said, “I think I just needed someone to tell me it was okay not to do it.” That, right there, was monumental. An Oprah-esque ‘Aha Moment.’ Sometimes we just need permission to say no. Wanting the people close to us to be proud of our accomplishments is a beautiful and very human experience. Wanting to keep our commitments is healthy and a part of growing into our own adulthood. And yet, changing course is not only okay, but can be the healthiest choice we can make.
So, if you find yourself stuck and needing permission to take a step or make a change, permission granted.
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