Fly Away
Sometimes being a mom is scary.My oldest, also named Jimmy, is 17 and a junior in high school. He’s so grown up. He works after school, he has his own car, he’s really independent these days and he acts it, too. He has little time for Mom & Dad anymore. It’s kind of sad. But I guess that is how life goes. We raise ‘em up as best we can and expect that one day they’ll fly from the nest, into the clear blue sky.
That’s the scary part. What is he going to do with himself? With his life? It frightens me. I can only imagine how it scares him. He would never show it – he’s too “Joe Cool” for that, but I bet, deep down, it’s scary. I mean, just think about it. You’re a kid, here’s your life: You watch Sesame Street, you play on the see-saw, you go to school, your mommy takes care of everything. It goes on like this year after year. And in school, it seems like you’ll just never get through, you’ll just spend year after year in school forever. And then….. all of a sudden you are a junior in high school and you look ahead and you can see it coming to an end. You can actually see the day when you are going to fly out of the nest. Then what?
We tell our kids “You can be ANYTHING you want to be!!” because we think it’s uplifting and inspirational. But – imagine how SCARY that thought is. A 17 or 18 year old kid doesn’t know what he wants to be. And the list of things to choose from stretches into infinity because he can be ANYTHING. That doesn’t help narrow the choices.
So here’s Jimmy. 17 years old, junior in high school, probably realizing that the ride is nearly over and he’s looking ahead and can see the edge of the nest. He’s a smart kid – I mean, really smart – yet he’s somewhat a slacker. He seldom brings homework home. I rarely see him studying. He does the minimum required to get by and still makes A’s and B’s, so in a sense he’s being rewarded for slacking. He says he wants to go to college and he has some brochures in his room, but he isn’t actively following up on them. He says there’s plenty of time. He’s taken the PSAT and will get his scores next month. He says he isn’t worried – the test was easy, he didn’t even really study for it. He’s very nonchalant about school and life in general.
Sometimes I think it is almost as if he’s trying to push himself away from the edge of the nest a bit. Maybe he doesn’t realize it, but he’s just trying to put it off a little while longer because it’s a scary world out there. Maybe he’s not ready for the reality of being a full-fledged adult just yet.
I can’t say that I blame him.
He’s 17, he’s bigger than me. He reminds me more and more of his Dad each day. Yet……… to me he’s still that baby with a few soft red hairs, wrapped up in a blanket in my arms.
posted by Tamfish @ 8:27 AM
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