Serpents' Teeth

Maybe it's not lack of gratitude, so much, that makes it hard to be an aging parent. What, after all, do kids have to be grateful for? At this stage, they are mostly feeding and housing and clothing themselves and they are probably not attending school on your remortgaged house. Not if they are 42 and 45, the way mine are.

Maybe they could be grateful for the good times. What good times? Thespia didn't want a ride home from school so she wasn't stuck with explaining the homemade camper on the elderly pickup truck, complete with stained glass windows. Trey has tried for years to make his boys' birthdays memorable. His memory of his own birthdays is that they were just days like any other.

The main thing I don't do is try to give my children child-raising tips. What could I know that would be useful, having brought them up in the Dark Ages? I used to let them ride buses all over San Francisco by themselves when they were 11 and 8 and their fares were a nickel each. I used to require them to cook one dinner each week, to the best of each of their abilities.

Recently, I suggested to a friend that her 25 year old son was old enough to take over some meal prep, if he was going to continue under her roof paying no rent. She patiently explained how busy he was - of course, I could see how much time he spent on computer games, which must be a latter day form of busy. Dweez didn't cook either, when he and Thespia were a family. Pippa says he makes cookies with her now.

I guess the main thing I did was bring my kids up to leave home. I thought that was a parent's mandate. While I was pregnant with Thespia, her father and I were reading "Summerhill". I was not totally committed to the child-centric world that A.S. Neill wrote about, but it was easy to understand that kids needed a real presence in a family and should have an arsenal of coping skills by the time they launch. Accordingly, Thes and Trey cooked, did laundry, sewed on buttons - didn't clean much but that wasn't one of my skills either. They are both much better at it now than I will ever be.

I guess I could carry on as though I had all the confidence of an air guitar contender. I could dispense attitude and advice in patronizing tones. I could ignore the storm clouds and insist that my age entitled me to complete respect. "I am the Matriarch!" was one of my wee mother's lines in later life. I don't think I could say that with her heartfelt conviction of rightness.