August 16, 2020

This is the last week I’ll have to put my name on the almond butter container in my own house. I had to start labeling my food because my quarantine “roommates” will eat anything and everything unless otherwise warned.

My hungry roommates, aka my “quaranteam,” are my young adult children and the longest-standing member of the team, the husband. (They would include the dogs on the team roster, but I don’t have to label my food for the dogs unless it falls on the floor.) 

My daughter was here finishing her college year remotely, and my son is preparing for grad school. This week, after five months living with my daughter and one month with my son (though he would say it felt like five months), those two members of the quaranteam are moving out.

But these last few months have been about much more than fighting to preserve my preserves.  It’s been an amazing time to get to know my kids in this new phase of their lives.

The big shocker: We’ve all behaved like grownups.  And the best part for me: I haven’t needed to worry and wonder how my children are doing because I’m doing it with them every day.

The husband has loved this time with his kids and keeps asking the obvious question: “When would we have had this time together as a family?” The answer, of course, is never. Because our job up until this point was to work towards our children’s total independence.

It was rough at first when they arrived. The husband and I had to give up all the well-earned habits of our empty nest, and we had to adjust to their habit of doing whatever they wanted whenever they wanted.

In the end, we developed great family routines with everyone pitching in and following the many rules I set up for them. Actually, that was true of only the younger members of the quaranteam. The husband has refused to comply with my rules for the last 35 years, so he figured why start now?

This time living together has been very different from when they were little kids, when getting them to do chores was a whole chore itself. They both love cooking, and I was happy to become their assistant so we could spend time together in the kitchen.  And we reaped the rewards of their culinary talents, with my daughter baking sourdough bread and my son chopping garlic like a pro.

We played games that ended in laughter and high fives instead of the shouting about losing and cheating when they were little. Instead of teaching me the rules of euchre for the 100th time, we’ve been playing tons of backgammon, a game with rules I can actually follow: just roll and move. My kind of game.

But it wasn’t all scenes of singing and happy board games. At times I still felt myself jumping back into the role of MOTHER: doing the laundry, cleaning, trying to control every aspect of my children’s lives. I had to remind myself constantly that it didn’t work when they were little, and it definitely wasn’t going to work now that I have to look up to yell at them.

Still, as grateful as I am for this unexpected time, I wish we didn’t have to have a pandemic to learn how to live together. And that’s why, despite my reservations about sending them out into this crazy time in the world, I know that this is the new normal for the foreseeable future.

And I know they need to go.

Their job as young adults is to learn how to live in the world independently. And our time together illuminated what I already knew to be true — my job as a mother has changed.  My new job description is to be here, enjoy, and let go– no matter what’s happening in the world around us.

First Published in the Democrat and Chronicle and USA Today Network.