June 19, 2000
CYBERCOLUMN:
Oh, grow up
___"Mom, could you take us to the Dairy Queen?"
___ The kid was in eighth grade, and he had struck gold being the only boy working with four girls on something to do with school. Mom was very comfortable in her role as chauffeur, but there were times she wished he already had his driver's license to chaffeur himself around. This was not one of those times, though. She wanted to watch this scenario play out. He was acting really odd around these girls for some reason.
___"Sure--everybody load up!" she said.
___ Mom pulled into the DQ parking lot, turned off the ignition and jumped out with therest of the group like she had done a hundred times before. Then the unthinkable happened.
DONNA VAN CLEVE
___ "Muu-therrr," the young man said quietly. "I just meant us…"
___ "Oh!" (Brain overload. Message does not compute.)
___ Respond gracefully. "I. Uh…" stutter, mumble…face turns red.
___ Act like you knew it all the time. "Uh, I was just going to get get me a cola."
___ Be cool. Don't let on that your heart's having a major myocardial infarction. This is the child for whom you spent 16 hours in labor? Who worshipped and adored you? Who never was embarrassed to hold your hand or kiss you goodbye in public?
___ The girls come to the rescue and insist Mom comes along.
___ She fakes a sigh. "OK, just this one time." Just one last time.
___ Two huge emotional milestones collide with Mom's senses at the same time. One impact is the awareness that her little boy isn't little any more. For years Mom sat comfortably in the No. 1 spot in her son's mind. And now a bunch of giggling 13-year-old girls have unkowingly knocked her off her throne.
___ The other impact is the shocking reminder of one's age. Know thine age and act it becomes a common mantra to keep a balance between one's chronological age and the supposed corresponding maturity. It is so easy to recognize old age in others--the young have a keen sense of it looking up from their perspective. But it is more difficult to recognize it looking back from the other direction, and especially from behind one's own eyes. That is why it sometimes shocks us when we see what we really look like in photographs. Surely that's not me! I feel much too young to look like that! The outside ages, the inside does not.
___ We used to have a group of ladies get together at church to share conccerns and pray about them. I had given some tips to one of the young moms who had been having trouble getting her son to finish his chores, and she later shared with the group that the advice had really helped her. She also said she really appreciated having an older woman to share her wisdom with all these younger women. I looked around the group trying to find this wise old sage to whom she was referring, and with a shock, I noticed that everyone was looking at me. I was in my mid-30s at the time, but to these young mothers in their 20s, I was an old geezer. Up until that point, I felt like we were peers.
___ My role toward my son has changed in so many ways throughout the years. I've digressed from the role of queen mother in his younger days to laundry woman in his college life. But he's started asking my advice again, and we talk often. And he still is not embarrassed top hold my hand and kiss me goodbye in public. But I know, too, that I'll never sit on that throne again. It is reserved for someone else in his life.
___ I have learned to be content, though, in watching from the wings--and in knowing this is the time for that stage in our lives.
Donna Van Cleve is director of the public library in Cotulla and a member of First Baptist Church there.
___
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