Is it possible that as your kids get older, they need you more? There are days I come home from work and everyone is quiet, settled. The minute I come through the door, it’s like they sense me. Usually, someone bursts into tears. I hear the days grievances, whose lunch I mixed up, the tattles, the worries. “You didn’t even ask me how my day was,” Adi often scolds moments after I’ve entered the house. My husband says it’s me.
When I’m not home, the kids are independent for the most part. They play. They get themselves snacks. They entertain each other. When I’m home, they’re like my shadows. “Mom, can you come upstairs so I can shower?” Adi asks. “Go downstairs and play,” I urge them. But they are afraid to be on a different floor than me…
Unlike a normal shadow, my shadows are never silent. Whenever I settle down at our kitchen table to get some work done, or to do some writing, it’s inevitable that my shadows will find me. My quiet working space turns into an Encanto sing-a-long or a coloring session complete with play by play commentary. “Can I please just have a few minutes to think?” I will beg. But I’m like a magnet, they’re drawn to me.
Someday, I know my shadows will detach and I wonder if I will know how to be on my own…
Where There Is Joy 
You will know how to be alone, and they won’t really detach. You capture the chaos in this post, Jess, and you also capture the love and the challenge of mothering. The goal is to be left, from the very first moment of being a mom, and you want to be left, but you don’t want to be left. You want to be your own person and have space, but you also want to know everything about those people… it’s exhausting and so, so fulfilling.
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What Melanie said. And yes, you will know how to be alone and the thinking time will be oh so appreciated! Arnauld’s right, it’s you. It’s you because you are mother. Xoxo
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Melanie captured it so well-the tension between the desire to make your children independent and to take care of them. I still deal with it today, even though the girls are grown and living their big, independent lives. I prefer the shadows.
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Shadow is a perfect metaphor, and like shadows they sometimes disappear but are never really gone. Thanks for a reflective piece! 🙂
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Oooh you capture the struggle so well! You want to be alone, and then, maybe no. “Can I please just have a few minutes to think?” is my most oft-repeated refrain too, as I lesson-plan or slice every evening.
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Your noisy shadows will, eventually, detach(ish) – or at least they’ll stretch a little. Even as I write, my 13yo is less and less underfoot and more and more in his bed until all hours of the morning and with his friends (though still not until all hours of the night, thank goodness). I hear the tears right when you walk in and the scolding that you haven’t asked about their day. It gets better – and, while I’m not yet to the point that I miss it, I can imagine that I’ll miss it someday.
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Sometimes I still have shadows and sometimes they fly- I like both! Your girls love their mom! ❤️
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1.we have a saying, little kids, little problems. Big kids, bigger problems.
2. Someday when you aren’t looking, those shadows will disappear from view and you will long for those chaotic, noisy days. Take my word for it.
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I know! They’re all sleeping at my mom’s tonight and I don’t know what to do with myself!
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“The minute I come through the door, it’s like they sense me.” You’re an amazing mom! I feel the same way- my children save it all for me and are also my (not silent) shadows. When they’re not around though, it feels weird to not have them close by. You captured the feeling of being a mom very well!
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