Protective

Was bowling with the boys over the weekend. After putting on his shoes and choosing a ball, my 20 year old bent down to roll up the bottom of his jeans which were dragging a bit on the floor.  "Good,"  I commented, "that was making me a little nervous."  He smiled, shook his head, and said, "Protective Mom."  I was slightly offended and remarked, a bit defensively, "I don't think I'm over protective."  Laughingly he corrected me, "I didn't say OVER protective, Mom, just 'protective'."

I was never a really anxious mother. I didn't hover.  I let the kids have a pretty free rein.  They ran, climbed, jumped, catapulted, and somersaulted. One spent about 6 months with a bruise in the middle of his forehead as a toddler because he fell so often. The other climbed into the kitchen sink before he could walk.  I didn't worry too much about grades or schoolwork, about the number of hours spent watching TV or playing video games. I didn't monitor their friends very closely or supervise their playdates.  Not to say I was uninvolved. I volunteered in their classrooms, went on field trips, helped with school and Scout activities. I tried taking them to church.

But, I find that as they have grown, I worry more and more about them. I'm more nervous now to see them walking along a cliff edge than I was when they were 5. Is that a function of realizing my own mortality? That I won't always be around to help them? The hurts seem so much bigger as they grow older. It seems one thing to fail a spelling test, quite another to flunk out of college. You can fall off the monkey bars and break an arm, but a car crash can kill you. Not having a friend to play with at recess hurts, but ending an intimate relationship hurts more. I feel like there are so many more things that will hurt them now. Maybe as they grow closer to adulthood I am better able to relate to the hurts they are bound to experience, I know the pains of adulthood, they are fresh in my mind.

I have strong, resilient, and capable sons. They show no indication that they will be overwhelmed by life, that they will falter under pressure, or crumple in defeat. In fact, quite the opposite. Still, I think I will worry about them until the day I die.