Middle Mom

Yesterday was Mother's Day, and I spent the day thinking that this year I have moved into a different phase as a mother. This year, all three of my kids are teenagers.

Obviously, it's been a long time since I was a New Mom, toting baby-carriers and diaper bags. And even though I'm only in my mid-forties, I don't consider myself a Young Mom. Those are the moms with juice boxes, strollers, and sticky-fingered urchins all clutched in their nimble grasp. (And, yes, I know some of them are probably in their early- or mid-forties, but I still think of them as Young Moms. I suppose the designation has more to do with the age of the children than the age of the mom.)

I remember when my oldest started elementary school and I looked, wide-eyed, at the moms who had been around a while -- the seasoned veterans with 5th or 6th graders -- and thought, Wow, they've really got their shit together. They're organized, calm. They look like they know what they're doing. And they did know. They knew what they were doing because they'd been doing it. For years.

But that's still the tail end of the Young Mom phase.

With three kids fully entrenched in junior high and high school, I don't think I can call myself a Young Mom anymore. Mostly because I don't feel like one.

My kids are all as tall as me. We include them in adult conversations. My oldest can get into R-rated movies without sneaking through the back door, and is the same age I was when I met his father. All three kids can arrange their own rides when I'm not available to chauffeur, can prepare something to eat when I'm not around to cook, and can (theoretically, because I know they know how but I never see them) do their laundry.

Are my kids independent? Yes. And no. Are they dependent? No. And yes. 

One day, they will have full-time jobs, other places to live, maybe spouses, maybe even children of their own. And then I will be a Mature Mom. One whose kids are fully launched.

But we're not there, yet. We are neither Young nor Old, New nor Mature. For now, we are in the middle. So I am a Middle Mom.

And I think this phase is going to last a while.