Default Setting

Action and reaction, ebb and flow, trial and error, change - this is the rhythm of living. Out of our over-confidence, fear; out of our fear, clearer vision, fresh hope. And out of hope, progress.

                                                                           –Bruce Barton.

Time to change the default setting on my motherhood mechanism. I have been a mother and a wife for more than half of my life. Making decisions at a very young age to be fully committed and do the best job at both that I possibly could. My husband and I were “all in” and we loved it. It was not without some serious good old-fashioned struggle, but I suppose we needed it.

Twenty-three years later kids are grown and growing and so are we. Part of what I thought went into being a good mother was being a strict disciplinarian. There was not a lot of parental guidance in my house growing up and I would pretend there was all the time.

I would impose on myself rules and regulations, curfews and traditions that didn’t exist. A good friend of mine had similar parents and we would say things to each other like, “ I think we really need more guidance.” Or “Do you think we should eat more vegetables?” Then we would shrug our shoulders and have a keg party because we could, no one seemed to mind. If my friends looked at their watches and were worried they would be in trouble if we stayed out much later I would feign being worried as well. "What time is it? Oh no, I’m going to be grounded!" (Grounded? What’s that??) My parents now claim they were so repressed growing up that they went 60’s style crazy and let me run my own life to a degree. Great idea, newsflash, kids don’t know shit. Looking back, I had plenty of people to run around with though so obviously others were living in a similar way although being the star of my own show it didn't seem that way at the time. My friend and I would chalk it up to our parents living through the “me” decade of the 70’s where adults of a certain age typically got divorced and put themselves first. I learned that I wanted to find more of a balance in my own parenting style. I longed for control in a life where everything seemed to be so out of my hands. On my own yet completely dependent, an inmate running my own asylum.

I don’t know how much you want to argue the nature vs. nurture debate but our kids actually grew up to be really great. Maybe we had a little something to do with it, I don’t know. I am fairly certain they were born this way. The four of them are all with their own faults because they are human beings after all but they are such solid, nice people who make me laugh. Which is basically all I could ever want in anyone, child or friend.

An interesting thing happened when everyone was home for Christmas. My son and I had an explosive argument where he for the first time in 19 and a half years yelled at me! He was always a sweet kid and maybe its because he was so cute and sweet as a little boy that I never got out of that mode of I am his “mommy”. The setting I put my mothering on was still the same one I used when he was a wee boy. We needed an explosive moment to signal to us that a shift was in order. At first I was devastated and I still had to remind him that no matter what I don’t call you sun cuz you shine, I call you son cuz your mine so watch yourself. We ended up having a very open and honest, great conversation.

My brain finally caught up to what was actually happening naturally and instinctively. That much needed shift that we felt happening in our bones long before our minds understood, things have changed. I didn’t need to have that same default setting of mommy that I had when he was 2 or 4 or 10. He was a man now and it was time for our relationship to evolve just like every relationship must do in order for it to keep growing in a healthy and positive direction for everyone involved. 

All relationships are constantly shifting. Relationships with our spouse, our kids, family, friends and our relationships with our selves are, god willing always going through some sort of evolution. Every ten years or so you may look around your house and say, You know, that couch we bought 23 years ago isn’t doing it for me anymore. I think I need a change. The cabbage roses I loved in 1989 just are not buttering the biscuit for me in 2012. Then you recover your couch and you have a little pep in your step when you walk through the room looking at your new/old couch. You feel better. You don’t need to get rid of the old couch; you just have to tweak it a little bit. It’s still the same comfy couch, but now it’s exciting again because you are seeing it in a whole new light.

The same goes for our relationships, (In case you weren’t picking up what I was putting down with my furniture metaphor). Sometimes you just have to shift the perspective. I chose to look at our argument as the greatest gift the boy could ever give me. I was so sad that I was missing him so much when he was away at school. But what he showed me by his exercise in autonomy was that I was missing a 6-year-old boy that didn’t exist anymore because that was what my mommy default setting was still on. We shifted in that one beautiful moment and I saw the man he actually is standing in front of me and not the boy I have to protect and mother. I can still be his mother but I can now care for him with out making him feel like he can’t take care of himself when he is around me. I was so intent all those years ago of being the best mom I could be I kind of got it in my head and I guess everyone else's head too, that I was the only one who could take care of you this way. You need me. (Or rather, I needed you to need me.) In that instant the chains I shackled myself with disappeared, I was free and so was he. Free to be us now, today.

The stages of a relationship infatuation, struggle and commitment are true for everyone. The beginning is infatuation, Oh! This is love! Then you move into the struggle of negotiation and evaluating and reevaluating. And you come to a spoken or unspoken agreement of the way you are going to live and you commit to that. But what we don’t realize is that the negotiations should never stop because we never stop evolving. Do you have what it takes to allow someone to grow and change and evolve without getting stuck in a default setting of “But that is not what we agreed on 10,20,30 years ago!”

Do yourself and the people you love a favor and pay attention to the shifting tides. Each day brings new awareness and possibilities. These moments that seem hard to get through are invaluable for personal growth. Next time you find yourself in this place where your body senses a shift coming long before your mind acknowledges that it is happening, like it or not. Ask yourself, where is this taking me and what is this telling me?

Don’t fear the change, every stage of a relationship can be new and exciting. The future holds endless possibilities, its all how you look at it. Things come to us when we need them the most. The universe is just designed that way I think. It is up to us individually to bear witness to our own evolution.