Tonight, Chris & I have to go to parents' orientation at Dunlap Middle School. Yes, Brogan will begin 6th grade next fall. I am completely not ready for this. How can that be? It's not like I haven't watched him grow up right before my eyes. Maybe I'm in so much denial because I don't want him to be that grown up yet. I miss my little boy.
This school year, as his last in grade school, has been hard all the way through. Everytime an event comes up, I think about it differently. It's not the Spring Play; it's Brogan's last grade school play. Last night was his last elementary school chorus concert, & I had to miss it. Not only was I over-booked (how do you manage to be in 4 different places at the same time?), but one of the committments on the calendar was paying me to be there, so that had to win. I felt like a bad mom missing the concert.
This year was also the 5th grade trip to the Hult Center for "the" talk -- everything from puberty on. Brogan, not knowing what the field trip was for, sincerely asked me if I was going to chaperone. I couldn't say no fast enough. I was more than happy to miss that trip! But now, I wonder, "why?" Am I really not ready to start thinking on my son in more grown-up terms? I mean, he's my baby --he will always be my baby.
There have been some rough times in our house/lives the last couple of months, most of which aren't anywhere on Brogan's radar because I've done my best to shield him from them. Now, though, I have to start struggling with how much to tell him of what;'s going on around him & how much to shield him. I don't want him to grow up being naive about the world, but I also don't want to force him to have to confront the reality of how cruel people can be too soon. Where is the right balance? Is there even one?
One of the things that has recently happened had someone outside our little family of 3 questioning the job we are doing as parents. So then it naturally made me wonder -- am I really doing a good job? Brogan still tells me often that I am the best mom in the world (it helps that he has so little reference to go by), but am I actually doing the best I can? I mean, I hate that all he has ever known is that Mom gets sick -- quite often -- with something most people dismiss like yesterday's paper. And that at least once a year, I have to go to Chicago to stay in the hospital for an extended time. Hopefully, I've done an adequate job of hiding from him how guilty I feel that I'm somehow cheating him out of something. I'm trying to teach him that we play the cards we are dealt, but how can I successfully do that when I feel like the deck was stacked against us? By the most minimal of standards, nothing is wrong -- Brogan is healthy, he's clean, he's fed well. He seems happy. So why do I feel like I've let him down? That I've somehow not been giving him everything he deserves?
Maybe I'm overthinking this. I mean, really, it's only 6th grade. What am I going to do when he gets to high school? Graduates? Graduates from college? Gets married??? Has his own kids????!!! I want my little boy to stay my little boy. But I also want him to grow into a kind. loving, caring man, just like his dad.
I don't seem tohave any answers for myself. And maybe I'm not supposed to. There's a reason why we aren't handed instruction books along with our baby & the hospital discharge papers. I'm hoping it's because there isn't really anyone out there with the answers -- not even the experts. We all have to muddle our way through the best we can. Does that make me a bad parent? I like to think not. I guess the "answer" doesn't come until he's all grown up. If he still like me (let alone loves me) as an adult, maybe then I'll feel like I've done the job right. But who knows?
Maybe by Freshman Orientation or graduation it won't bother me as much. I won't hold my breath...
