Mother as "Personal Assistant"

Lately, I’m not feeling like a Mother anymore…but mostly, my daughter’s personal assistant.

Nina is 16 and a half and a junior in high school. Remember how grown up you felt when you were that age? Well, I’m respecting that.

I wake her up in the morning for school. I make her a cup of tea. I drive her to school. I ask her, “What would you like for lunch today?” The reason I ask, is because it is just the two of us, and if I make what I want, and she doesn’t want it, she just won’t eat it. So since I’m easy, it’s easier for me to prepare something she will eat.

I see that her clothes are washed and ironed. I drive her to her sports, academic events and social life. I give her cash when she needs it. Not exhorbitant amounts, but enough for the occasional burger or movie.

This all feels more like personal assisting, not mothering. But I guess that’s a play on words. Because it really is Mothering. With a grown up and very modern twist.

Life is a voyage

I feel compelled to write this because you, my darling son and daughter, feel the intensity of your lives and are wondering about having and creating "the right life."

You don't have one life. You have many lives.

You will be a hippie, a conservative, a single person, part of a couple. You will be a student, a worker, a volunteer. You will have a job, be unemployed, start your own business. There will be times when you drink a lot, perhaps, and times when you are against alcohol totally. You will have years when you meditate, eat vegetables and do yoga. Then you will find yourself a rip-roaring steak eater, the more rare the better. You will be a baker, baking your family's daily bread, and then go for years buying your cookies and pies. You will identify yourself as a painter, then stop painting and become a business person or vice versa. You will go through many different styles of life and of clothes. You will be skinny, you will be chubby. You will be happy, you will be depressed. You will have long hair, short, spiky, coloured, permed, curly, straight hair. You will be single, married, divorced, a widower. You might be a parent, a grandparent, an aunt, an uncle, a niece, a nephew, a cousin, a sister, a brother, an in-law, a friend, an enemy, a client, a boss, an employee.

No matter who you are or who you are with, you are always yourself, alone.

Life is an evolution of who you are, of who you become. You are never one thing. Life is a voyage. Flow in each moment, loving each version of yourself, each burning interest of the day. Life is always a quest. Embrace the journey; there is no "arriving." That's what makes life so wonderful. Always something around the bend. Always something to learn, something to strive for.

And if you understand now, that there is always one more person who needs your love and understanding, you will never be lost.

Nina and me.

It's Nina's turn.

Pablo had my full attention for two years before his sister Nina was born.

With Pablo going to college, things have come full circle. Now I will have an amazing two years of exclusive time with my smart, talented, funny, beautiful daughter Nina.

Nina, as second child, feels she has always gotten the short end of everything.

I also felt the same way, because I too, was the second child, the sister of an older brother. But of course, now as an adult, I know differently: Mother loved both Buzz and me equally but in different ways, as mothers do with sons and daughters.

The minute my brother left home for college, I was the queen of the house, the supreme, reigning, ten times cooler teenager. I was no longer compared to Buzz in any way -- and I came into my own, changing in ways I could not have imagined.

This is Nina's special time and a blessed gift for me. Already we are planning our bohemian girly life, mother and daughter friends, how we will eat veggies, do yoga and bike together, take an evening stroll for sorbet. For the first and only time in her life, she will have all of me.

Here's to you, Nina!