School starts in exactly 2 weeks. We’ve been doing all the normal back-to-school things like shopping, reading emails, checking lists and making sure summer assignments actually get finished.

Normal stuff.

Except this year, none of it feels exactly normal. Because in just two weeks, my daughter will walk through those school doors as a senior.

A SENIOR.

And my son will walk through his school doors as a sophomore. Somewhere between buying school supplies, packing lunches, signing permission slips, sitting through practices, checking grades and asking “Did you do your homework?” approximately nine million times, my babies grew up.

It happened so freaking fast.  I swear it was yesterday that we were preparing for kindergarten, now we’re talking about college.

And I don’t think anyone adequately prepares parents for what that feels like.  They Still Need Me. Just Differently.  When our children are little, they need us for everything from food, baths,shoes. transportation, permission,comfort and answers.

Us.

Then, almost without noticing it, the job starts changing.  They make their own food. They choose their own clothes. They make plans. They solve problems without immediately calling us. They have opinions about their futures and begin building lives that don’t require our involvement in every decision.

And that’s exactly what they’re supposed to do, right?!

We’ve spent their entire childhood teaching them how to become independent adults. So why does succeeding at that sometimes feel like losing something?

Because, in a way, we are. Not them. We’re losing a version of them. The kindergarten hand that automatically reached for ours. The little voice calling Mom! from another room because apparently nobody else in the house could locate the cream cheese.

The version of motherhood where being needed was constant and obvious.

«“Our children don’t stop needing us. They simply stop needing us in all the ways we’ve gotten used to being needed.”»

That transition can be beautiful and it can also hurt like hell. Nobody Warned Me What This Would Feel Like. People warn you about things like Sleepless newborn nights. Toddler tantrums. Middle school attitudes. Teenage hormones. College applications.

Nobody really talks about the emotional roller coaster happening inside us while our children are growing up.

I’m proud.

I’m excited.

I’m sad.

I’m curious.

I’m scared.

Sometimes I’m all five before I’ve finished my coffee. And I’m learning that I don’t have to choose one. I can be ridiculously proud that my daughter is preparing for her senior year while simultaneously wanting to grab the five-year-old version of her and hold her for another afternoon.

I can look at my son becoming this smart, funny young man and still see the little boy who once needed me for EVERYTHING.

Joy doesn’t cancel grief. Grief doesn’t mean I’m not grateful. They can exist at the same table.

But then there’s the question Nobody wants to ask, Who am I when raising my children is no longer the center of my universe?

That’s the part I’m still figuring out. For years, so many of my decisions have started and ended with them.

School schedules. Activities. Dinner. Vacations. Money. Work. Weekends. Motherhood doesn’t end when they become adults. Obviously, but the job description does.

And maybe Parenting in Progress isn’t only about raising children who are becoming adults. Maybe it’s also about raising ourselves into the people we’re going to become next. Because eventually they’re supposed to leave. They’re supposed to build careers, relationships, homes, families, adventures and lives that belong to them.

That’s the assignment. And if we’re lucky, they’ll still call. They’ll still come home. They’ll still ask what we think even when they have absolutely no intention of doing what we suggested. Our role simply changes from managing their lives to having the privilege of being invited into them.

Maybe We Never Really Let Go.

The other day, Fred shared something with me that he’d seen on social media:

We hold our children’s hands when they’re small. Then they hold ours when we grow old.

And whew.

If that isn’t the entire lifecycle of parenting in one thought, I don’t know what is. When they’re little, we hold their hands because the world is too big for them to navigate alone.

We walk them across streets. Into classrooms. Through crowded stores. Toward things that scare them.

Then somewhere along the way, they let go. They walk a little farther ahead.

They start making decisions without us. Building relationships without us. Creating lives that belong to them. And we’re supposed to let them.

But maybe letting go was never really about losing each other. Maybe we’re simply entering the years between the hands. The years when they don’t need us to lead them anymore, but we’re still close enough to reach for one another when we need to.
And someday, if we’re lucky enough to grow old together, the hands that once fit completely inside ours may be the ones reaching back to steady us. There’s something incredibly beautiful about that.

«“For a little while, we show them the way. Then we walk beside them. And someday, they may help us find ours.”»

These Are the Years Between the Hands

So this school year, I’m not going to tell myself not to be sad.

I’m also not going to force myself into “Enjoy every second!”

I’m going to let myself feel the whole damn thing.

The pride.

The sadness.

The excitement.

The uncertainty.

Because we are literally sending our hearts out into the world. And maybe letting them go isn’t one giant goodbye. Maybe it’s a thousand tiny releases. One school year. One driver’s license. One college application. One increasingly independent decision at a time. Until one day we look up and realize:

They grew up.

But so did we.

So as I prepare and hold back the overflow of tears as I watch my daughter and my son begin The Year of S-Senior and Sophomore, I’ll be proud, excited, sad and completely unsure what to do with myself.

And I’m not going to fight any of it, because maybe this is what parenting was always supposed to be. First, we hold their hands and show them the way, then comes this beautiful, uncomfortable space where we learn to walk beside them, and someday, if we’re lucky, they’ll reach back and hold ours.

These are what I’m calling the years between the hands, and I don’t want to miss them wishing for the years that came before or worrying about the ones still ahead.

—

Parenting in Progress is just that PROGRESS because we’re not supposed to have all the answers. It’s about recognizing that while we’re busy raising our children, they’re raising us too. Every stage asks something different of them and something different of us. We’re all still figuring it out and maybe that’s exactly the point.