Adulthood

What makes a person an adult? My first thought was that once a person takes responsibility for themselves they should be considered an adult.  I think sometimes this happens when children are quite young. When they have abusive/neglectful parents and end up fending for themselves, they lose their chance to be children and enjoy that short time of being dependent on adults who will take care of them while they have the chance to develop and learn how to take care of themselves. I also think there are the other extremes where people never truly take responsibility for themselves, whether they are completely dependent on parents or friends or society as a whole.

I think about this a lot. I know my goal as a parent is to raise independent, happy, productive citizens.  I want them to take care of themselves, but still be able to have that time to be a child. It is hard to strike the right balance and I think that the right balance may be different with each child depending on their needs. I find myself asking constantly if I'm giving each of them enough responsibility or too much?  Can they walk to school by themselves? Are they safe? Should I let him deal with his schedule problems by himself? If I help him am I a helicopter parent? If I don't, does that mean I don't care?

I know that through the coming years, I will ask myself many questions such as these and more. I just hope I can strike the right balance and help make my children's transition into adulthood as easy as possible.   

Stand firm or drift

My oldest daughter is a freshman in high school this year, and even though she has only been in school for a couple of weeks, she has had some interesting experiences. First of all I have to say she is not your typical teenager. She is intelligent, beautiful, level-headed, athletic and very sober.  She is naïve and innocent.  She has never seen a rated r movie. She does not cuss. She has no desire to smoke, drink alcohol, or do drugs. She has no current crushes (at least that she'll admit to me). I think she is having a bit of a hard time adjusting to high school. She is on the varsity soccer team and she went to a team dinner last night. The dinner was fine, but afterward the girls pulled out a game--Cards against Humanity.  She and her friend (fellow freshman) were horribly uncomfortable and left the dinner.

Her experience made me reflect on my own high school years.  I think I could probably be described similar to my daughter except for the beautiful and athletic parts (she gets those from her dad). I feel like we are different from most teenage girls and even now I feel like I don't relate to most teenage girls. Am I weird? Is my daughter strange? Are we wrong to not belong?

I admit to a kind of feeling of moral superiority when I was a teenager. I saw all of the teenage lover tiffs, best friend cat fights, and other seemingly immature displays and thought they were silly. But were they?  I think it takes all kinds of people to make up this world and no one person has any more right to take up more than anyone else. I remember thinking that the self-imposed chaos I saw in the teenagers around me was crazy and not for me, but did I miss out? Would I be a different person, maybe for the better, if I had loosened up a bit and experimented? Should I encourage my daughter to do some crazy things while she has the chance and lacks the responsibility?

I don't know. I think my daughter will do what she wants to do.  She makes her own choices. We've done what we could to instill good values and high morals, but she has to choose who she is and what is important to her. 

I do know she will have more and more situations like the one she had last night.  I think she is beginning to see how different she is from your "typical teenager". Luckily, she has as I had, good friend with similar interests and similar values so she doesn't have to stand alone. I just always hope that she maintains the confidence to be herself and not shift her values and feelings about things to drift with the crowd.

After 5 kids and 14 and a half years of having kids at home and being a full time stay at home mom, my youngest baby has left me for kindergarten. I am having a hard time with this.  I keep walking around an empty silent house wondering where the time went. What do I do now? No diapers to change, no children's' books to read, no princess to play (Well I guess the princess are still there, but, you know what I mean).

What do I do now? I have done my research this last year. I think I have annoyed all of my friend who are in this situation by asking them what they do.  I think some of them thought I was making fun of them, but I knew I would have a hard time with this change.  I can move anywhere (we have), I can make new friends, but don't take my babies away from me. The last time I had this hard of time was when my oldest was born and I left work to stay home with her.

So this is what my blog is about: Who am I? What do I do now? This is more therapy for me than anything else. But if you're reading this, you're welcome along for the journey.

A little about me: I was married at the tender age of 19. I finished my bachelor's degree while my husband finished his. My degree was in history with a minor in English and I had grand visions of teaching high school and changing the world. After graduation, we moved to Northern Virginia and I found a job as an administrative assistant at a small architectural firm.  It worked. after a couple years of trying to have a baby, we succeeded and my beautiful, oldest daughter was born.  I discovered my favorite career that I was made for--a mother. We moved to Michigan and my son was born, we moved to Idaho and my daughter and then my other son was born. We moved to Wyoming and my daughter was born and now we live in Oregon.

I love being a mom, but I hate housekeeping.  I don't like to clean, but I do it. I don't really like to cook, but I do it. I don't like to do laundry, but I do it. I absolutely loath doing the dishes, the kids do most of them and my husband does the rest. What's a mom to do?

I am trying to figure out what to do with the rest of my life.  I am going to be 37 soon. I have got many years before my husband retires and I can't see myself staying at home for the next 25 years waiting for him to do just that. Do I start a career? Do I go back to school? Do I volunteer? Do I make myself miserable trying to have the perfect house and perfect meals and what not?

For right now I am trying to find my way.  It has been one week that all five of my kids have been in school full time and I have discovered that I have lost myself the last 14 and a half years.  I don't know what I like anymore. I don't know who I am anymore.  I am taking a class at the local college to see what it is like to go back to school, but I also want to take this time to find me so that is why this is called finding mom (I am mom). Sorry if you were looking for a finding your birth mom from adoption blog.