This is lovely and real. I think all children are scarred by their parents. I think all parents scar their children because loving anyone that much in this world is scary as all get out. I have apologized to all three of mine for whatever wounds I have caused. Maybe, hopefully - if we do our work and meet our shadow and become conscious - we can become balm for those scars as we become grandparents. Happy birthday to the twins and their grandmother!
Sigh, such humble honesty and grandmother wisdom. My grandkids are teens now snippin’ at the apron strings. Off to NM and Oregon in the fall. First trip solo, no kids. Happy birthdays all around. I love granny stories. Thanks again for my morning read. ⚔️ hi ho, y’all!
thank you for sharing this Susan. Especially timely as I navigate two daughters (15 and 17) who like to test boundaries and often treat me like their servant and nagging hellion mom. It's hopefully a long ways off before I take on the role of grandmother, and your wise words really hit home for my mothering mistakes thus far. Friends say kids stop being selfish monsters in their early 20s. Hopefully we all survive till then.
I would have cheerfully locked both sons in a closet at age 14. They hate you. They want a drive to practice. They are slamming doors. They need a hug.
It hardly seems possible! I remember you had just started your annual hike and had to cut it short to come back. Happy Birthday to the twins!
My mother was more of a laissez-faire mother, somehow trusting that someone else would do what she could not. I would have liked to have had someone who took more of an interest in me, but she was too caught up in her own problems. She did the best she could considering how she was raised, but that was a different culture and didn't carry over well into 1950s Texas.
I have thought some about my own mother and if I expect forgiveness, well, I need to forgive. We are all doing as we’ve been taught until we learn better, I guess.
It’s not just grandmas, though both of mine were great. My parents both worked a lot and my grandfather provided most of my non-parental day care before I started school. Quite possibly the most influential and fortunate relationship in my life. The twins are lucky to have you.
We learn so much as we age. Your grand twins are lucky to have you and vica versa. I’m a little older than you and have two grown kids but no grandkids on the horizon. I always thought it would happen but am reckoning that it’s not likely at this point. That makes me sad because I wanted that role and hoped to be like you but may have retained the less relaxed role from my parents. I did hope to see my kids experience the role of parenthood as it definitely changes your perspective.
I applaud your transcendence of your scars, and for telling about it! I'm so glad your know such joy together.
I am about your age, but I was such a late-breaking mother that my son is only 6.5 years older than your grandchildren. This has permitted me to be a grandparent of a parent, and you help me to appreciate my good fortune.
Yesterday was a kind of parable for me about parenting at its more strenuous. I have been supporting Chun Woo for three weeks through the writing of two short essays to apply for a fellowship. (Yes, he does want the fellowship and to apply for it: he's making that desire into an obstacle to just writing the vershugginah things and getting the application in.) He is fighting with the literary form because he doesn't want to be pick-me. He's bothered because talking about why he wants the position and why he's qualified makes him feel insincere. he's bothering by being repetitive when he writes them as tiny essays and he's bothered by the discontinuities when he hasn't put in an essay-like transition.
In my Harrogate yesterday morning at 5:00 I woke to a text message telling me that he'd changed a bunch of things and would I look at it? So I got up to find that he had deleted all the concrete detail out. That was what he'd been revising to incorporate. The application is due Friday and he wants to drive to Vail Thursday to see a friend. I texted him back to say I thought he shouldn't go to Vail unless the application had been submitted. And that when he got it finished I would give him an informational treat as a reward.
I held his hand and told him "No, that doesn't sound weird." and "Yes, that sentence is bland, but all you want it to do is lead to the details you give, and no one will pay attention to it." for four-hours (thank God discontinuous) hours yesterday. And he got done. I forgot about the treat, but Chun Woo remembered: I told him what a palinode was. He looked it up and read the definition back to me and laughed and said, "Yeah, that's apt." And I know that I'm also lucky because he wants a beta reader and makes use of one, and isn't precious about his prose. And reads for me, too.
This is lovely and real. I think all children are scarred by their parents. I think all parents scar their children because loving anyone that much in this world is scary as all get out. I have apologized to all three of mine for whatever wounds I have caused. Maybe, hopefully - if we do our work and meet our shadow and become conscious - we can become balm for those scars as we become grandparents. Happy birthday to the twins and their grandmother!
Meet our shadow. I love that.
Heartfelt story, VG!
Sigh, such humble honesty and grandmother wisdom. My grandkids are teens now snippin’ at the apron strings. Off to NM and Oregon in the fall. First trip solo, no kids. Happy birthdays all around. I love granny stories. Thanks again for my morning read. ⚔️ hi ho, y’all!
thank you for sharing this Susan. Especially timely as I navigate two daughters (15 and 17) who like to test boundaries and often treat me like their servant and nagging hellion mom. It's hopefully a long ways off before I take on the role of grandmother, and your wise words really hit home for my mothering mistakes thus far. Friends say kids stop being selfish monsters in their early 20s. Hopefully we all survive till then.
I would have cheerfully locked both sons in a closet at age 14. They hate you. They want a drive to practice. They are slamming doors. They need a hug.
It hardly seems possible! I remember you had just started your annual hike and had to cut it short to come back. Happy Birthday to the twins!
My mother was more of a laissez-faire mother, somehow trusting that someone else would do what she could not. I would have liked to have had someone who took more of an interest in me, but she was too caught up in her own problems. She did the best she could considering how she was raised, but that was a different culture and didn't carry over well into 1950s Texas.
I have thought some about my own mother and if I expect forgiveness, well, I need to forgive. We are all doing as we’ve been taught until we learn better, I guess.
Camp? Holiday Hill? I’m an alum.
It’s not just grandmas, though both of mine were great. My parents both worked a lot and my grandfather provided most of my non-parental day care before I started school. Quite possibly the most influential and fortunate relationship in my life. The twins are lucky to have you.
Susan, beautiflly said & done!
We learn so much as we age. Your grand twins are lucky to have you and vica versa. I’m a little older than you and have two grown kids but no grandkids on the horizon. I always thought it would happen but am reckoning that it’s not likely at this point. That makes me sad because I wanted that role and hoped to be like you but may have retained the less relaxed role from my parents. I did hope to see my kids experience the role of parenthood as it definitely changes your perspective.
I applaud your transcendence of your scars, and for telling about it! I'm so glad your know such joy together.
I am about your age, but I was such a late-breaking mother that my son is only 6.5 years older than your grandchildren. This has permitted me to be a grandparent of a parent, and you help me to appreciate my good fortune.
Yesterday was a kind of parable for me about parenting at its more strenuous. I have been supporting Chun Woo for three weeks through the writing of two short essays to apply for a fellowship. (Yes, he does want the fellowship and to apply for it: he's making that desire into an obstacle to just writing the vershugginah things and getting the application in.) He is fighting with the literary form because he doesn't want to be pick-me. He's bothered because talking about why he wants the position and why he's qualified makes him feel insincere. he's bothering by being repetitive when he writes them as tiny essays and he's bothered by the discontinuities when he hasn't put in an essay-like transition.
In my Harrogate yesterday morning at 5:00 I woke to a text message telling me that he'd changed a bunch of things and would I look at it? So I got up to find that he had deleted all the concrete detail out. That was what he'd been revising to incorporate. The application is due Friday and he wants to drive to Vail Thursday to see a friend. I texted him back to say I thought he shouldn't go to Vail unless the application had been submitted. And that when he got it finished I would give him an informational treat as a reward.
I held his hand and told him "No, that doesn't sound weird." and "Yes, that sentence is bland, but all you want it to do is lead to the details you give, and no one will pay attention to it." for four-hours (thank God discontinuous) hours yesterday. And he got done. I forgot about the treat, but Chun Woo remembered: I told him what a palinode was. He looked it up and read the definition back to me and laughed and said, "Yeah, that's apt." And I know that I'm also lucky because he wants a beta reader and makes use of one, and isn't precious about his prose. And reads for me, too.