Enjoying the Swim

Over the years, my daughter—who qualifies as a millennial—has developed a flair for the dramatic. In actuality, it’s an attribute that we share. However, as she moved into her twenties, she began to have mixed feelings about being seen as some version of her mother. Like so many of her peers, she’s at that stage in which she takes pride about becoming her own person; she sees herself as different than and separate from me.

So, it wasn’t surprising when, during a long distance conversation last Friday from her home in far-away California, I’d baited her by recounting yet another humorous and “quirky Mom” story, just as I had numerous times previously. Her reaction—predictable: a burst of laughter that was over the top. As she worried aloud, once again, about the possibility that such ditziness might be a heritable trait, I stifled my own laugh. My girl’s emoting, as if for a movie camera, was so evident that it could not be missed.

Oh God, Mom! Grace had wailed after I’d told her about my most recent misadventure with a winged creature flying through my study that afternoon. You can’t possibly mean to tell me that what you thought was a sparrow was really a BAT! Even when it was zooming around the room, so huge, and swooping right past you?

In my best psychologist’s voice, I offered up the notion that my temporary break with reality had merely been an attempt on my part to ease my anxiety, which was intense. Corralling a chirpy little bird, after all, was far less frightening than catching a bat—an animal possibly riddled with rabies and hell-bent on driving its teeth into my neck after sundown. Who wouldn’t have opted for denial? I’d insisted. But my kid trashed such an argument without taking a breath.

So instead of dealing with it, you shoved all the windows open, left the doors unlocked, and then took a NAP—a really long one—hoping that this BAT would have flown out when you woke up? Her plaintive cry morphed into a desperate laugh at the situation: This is exactly what I’m worried about, Mom. She moaned, betraying how dire she believed the situation actually had been. Your gene pool is not a place that I want to dive into.

Okay, okay, I acknowledged. It was a flaky thing to do. But then, unable to stop myself from going in for the tease, I kept my tone calm: Don’t worry, honey. A study I read the other day says that women don’t start acting like their mothers until they’re at least thirty-three. You should be safe for another few years.

What followed was a half-hour jaunt through our memory banks, marked by humor, this time with Grace calling me out on a story I’d forgotten but which testified to my more quintessential foibles: a time when we were out together looking to buy a coat, or something, when I’d stumbled backward into what seemed to me to be a fellow shopper; Grace now mimicked the way I’d said “I’m sorry,” over and over, even before I had turned to face the person I’d jostled; then, pretending to be horrified, she’d described what it was like to watch me repeatedly apologizing—to a mannequin.

Then she launched into retelling a story that had occurred during a recent visit to Home Depot, during a stay with her in Los Angeles. This time, however, it was my turn to groan at the memory, embarrassed: on that day I’d guided Grace’s willing Corgi, without pause, into a car I mistook for the SUV I’d rented for the trip.

By the time we’d exchanged the “I love you’s,” that always marked the end of our phone calls, I was flashing a grin in private, laughing at myself yet again. I loved to banter with my daughter in this way. How ironic it was to assume the role of the “dummy” in these exchanges, which—for whatever reason—seemed to make our bond grow infinitely stronger.

Early the next morning, I sipped my coffee under the canopy of our backyard maple. The solitude quieted me, the afternoon with the swooping bat falling away. The other incidents we’d shared the day before, so amusing in tenor, underlined now the new and solid relationship Grace and I had forged following the tumultuous years of her adolescence. What had happened then was far worse than the period of “teenage angst” I had imagined would occur, a period dominated by years of mutual anger and hurt.

Grace’s depression and anxiety eventually developed into a case of acute anorexia, and despite my best efforts, I was unable to help her. Unconsciously, my own issues around separation and emotional abandonment, still so unresolved at that time—and which dated back to my own childhood and adolescence—hindered my ability to hear my daughter as she needed to be heard.

Without intending to be so tone deaf, I was unable to listen as she pleaded with me without words. It was an emotional hearing loss that persisted despite Grace’s attempts to claim her own voice and work her way into her own skin. In our mother-daughter dance of connection, I’d foundered, and the result was considerable. Severe. My child’s healing came neither fast nor without anguish. However, over time I learned to let her go on an emotional level, to find her own way, even though this came at a price: I had to deal with my own problems and my own pain rather than with hers.

Today, like so many mothers of daughters, I remain mindful of the unique challenges we must face as we strive to maintain attachments with our girls, those that are healthy ones. The task of separating from their mothers—while allowing them to nevertheless identify with us simultaneously—is no one-off, and it happens at the same time our daughters are fighting for their independence. Both our experience and the research done by psychologists allows us to see that this is a process that will happen over and over again, with different iterations occurring throughout the course of our lives. These are the milestones that mark our growth as individuals.

What I do know for certain is that my relationship with Grace requires steady and constant care. Without respect for our differences, the connection between us might become too tightly knotted. Yet, without open and honest communication, it could fray and then break apart. Striking the balance between knowing when to lean in and when to let go continues to be my goal, even as I recognize that this is a skill earned only by Master Mommies, one I will be honing for the rest of my days.

Do I worry that my girl takes so quickly to the idea that I’m scatterbrained? Or that she might be a featherhead, too? No, I don’t. Instead, I find it to be a source of amusement, both for my circle of friends and for me, as well. Moreover, I’ve had ample opportunity to witness the many ways in which my lovely young drama queen is both like and unlike me. I see the similarities. I recognize our many differences. What matters to me most is what I believe to be true: she’s grounded in all the right ways.

But if Grace were to ask me, directly, if I believed that a penchant for magical thinking, an affinity for denial, and a predilection for distractibility were baked into her DNA, I’d probably just smile. And then ask her how she liked the water. What I would care about most is that she find ways to enjoy the swim.