Ann. Letter: Andie On Her Own

As I grabbed a butter knife to eat cereal, I thought of all the distracting ways our life is spent trying to get three people to figure out how to live a decent productive life without us hovering around, constantly haranguing, or hugging them until they can’t breath. “You turn around and they are gone, so love them now!” How true that warning turned out to be (and so many other words of wisdom). Somehow, we managed to raise one to “adulthood“. Driving a car, paying taxes, choosing a president, getting herself up in the morning (we think)... she has now becoming another young American citizen probably wondering why she ever wished she could grow up.

Six years ago our firstborn, Andrea, was a struggling jr. high kid. She was diagnosed with a touch of ADD, so despite an almost supernatural ability to consume books, she tends to find the everyday coursework grind a bit too overwhelming. We thrashed around a bit, trying to help her. School has always been an organizational challenge for our kids (hmmm! where’d they get that?!) so we put her in Independent Study for 2 years and that seemed to help. By her choice she returned to regular school in 9th grade and graduated from Eureka High School in 2003 with a wide and colorful variety of grades.

Andie’s bumpy teen years were spent drifting from interest to interest, while battling with her noisy younger siblings. Too often she’d futilely try to mother-hen them, rolling her eyes in exasperation, then retreat to the dim recesses of her room. She became deeply interested in role playing games, both video and real-human variety, but especially the latter. Twice a week, for years now, she spends hours in the back of a comic-store, dwelling in mythical made up worlds, battling all kinds of weird stuff in fantasy play with groups of bright, odd-looking folks. Yeah, it's weird and I don't really get it but I'm a Star Wars & Lord of the Rings fan so who am I to criticize? It ain't drugs. She has a wide variety of other tastes and interests. She knits, loves movies (though rarely watches TV), introduced her Dad & Mom to Yoga, enjoys drawing, especially anime, and calligraphy. She studied Japanese for 2 years and for a while was quite a fan of all their goofy animated culture. She also has a great underused dramatic gift. We hope she becomes more willing to develop that. She has a keen sense of justice and has wed herself (often at behest of others) to causes with a passion we hope she will build upon in years to come…once she learns how to master follow-through. She has accomplished some things we are very proud of. In the summer of 2001 she got a passport and malaria shots & spent 2 weeks in Honduras with our church, building houses for victims of Hurricane Mitch and getting to know a bit about that country and life in the world beyond the US. As the only member of our family with calluses from doing anything to directly better the poor, we were deeply impressed, and very glad to see her so awed by the beauty, the people, and the very sad poverty. The following summer her then current boyfriend at the time was taken gravely ill and spent 7 weeks in intensive care; she was at his side every day, learning all about his rare condition and amazing the medical staff not only with her comprehension but her dedication. For a summer we flirted with the notion that our eldest might pursue a lucrative medical career, but she shows no signs of interest and we continue to contribute to our 401k.

As the eldest we hold our breath in trepidation as she experiences the first of everything that scares and thrills a parent (why so many more, it seems, of the former than the latter??): dating, driving, graduating, getting a job. After a brief stint as a janitor at mom's work (laid off due to budget cuts; where is the Socialist Revolution now that we need it?!?) and a Xmas job at a dept. store , she spent MANY months of 2004 looking for "just the right job", i.e. no fast-food, heavy-lifting, organizational challenges, early start times, or too many hours. Finally she found work at our brand new Target store which, in delicious irony, contains nearly all the aspects she was trying to avoid, but seems to like it anyway. So much, in fact, that she decided (after just 2 months) she could live off her new largess and move out. We were all getting along fine, in fact last year I was joking how my oldest daughter “who couldn't wait to leave town now really likes to be home with us!” I remember we all went out to a movie after assuming Andie, who was due home any minute, would prefer to see it with her friends. We came home to find her miffed that we had not included her. It wasn't just the movie, she said, it was doing things with the family that she missed. I felt quite guilty for thinking of her as so independent (despite her years of complaints about being around her noisy siblings). That was 18. At 19 she announces she is "too comfortable" at home and needs to "learn how to live independently" before she departs for said mystery college beyond the horizon. A sound idea, perhaps, but naïve, financially nearsighted, and tainted by the deeply irritating fact that her three new roomates include her college-less, fast-food working, video-game crazed boyfriend. We argued, cajoled, and threatened. We even made out a budget, Bill Cosby-style, that showed her with $2 left over each month under optimistic circumstances, but she displayed her typical stubbornness (after weeks of her typical avoidance of telling us about the decision), and moved out in November ‘04. She was hoping to go on to a 4-year school "anywhere but Humboldt County,“ but lately she has been struggling, feeling that she is “confused and not sure” what to do next with her life. The small effort she gave college failed to inspire her; in fact, it overwhelmed her, and so after two years she has dropped out and seems content, for now, to trudge off daily and be part of the Target “Team”. (Sigh.) We check on her periodically, calling whenever she remembers to pay her phone bill, but avoid their house because it reminds us of... decrepit poverty, which at 19 both Anna & I were all too familiar with. Of course for Andie it represents freedom or maturity or some intangible inspiration that druges like us can't fathom anymore. To me it looks like crap, an unnecessary move into expensive challenges, a wallow in an unambitious collective, and, yes, immorality.

Sure, even I cringe a bit when using that latter word; it seems archaic in this “anything goes” society, but Anna and I didn't need to shack up, and we can't expect morality from our children if we don't reproach its lack. Andie was always the best behaved and still the most pleasantly disposed which makes it all more difficult to be the thundering Old Testament father (my thunder is more of the whiny variety). Still, she stood her ground and so we vowed to subsidize none of this madness, except for school expenses, and... well, we keep her room empty, half wishing her back safe, half hoping she makes it so we can finally have an extra room... but those days will come soon enough and we would probably be wise to not wish them a hasty arrival.

It seems that she might feel she has let us down, and so sort of avoids talking to us, unless we go to Target (captive audience!). We wait for her to decide what she wants next. Perhaps her boyfriend Mike, who possesses a college scholarship from his stint in the CCC will set an example for her when he finally starts taking classes, which he vows to do "soon". He’s a good guy, treats her well, and I’m hoping he's giving ambition serious consideration and perhaps inspire our wayward daughter. There’s not much more we can say except, well, it could be worse. She could be pregnant! (Oh God, why did I think of that….!)

Don’t believe them when they say it gets easier (It never did for my parents, or Anna's!), but it can get better....well, maybe not that either. Children are a miracle...well, maybe not our kids...something close, perhaps...well, huh... let’s just say we love ‘em dearly, no matter what...and they aren’t pregnant or on drugs!! And they are beautiful and successful good people and...they have sucked our whole lives out from under us and...we would do it again in a heartbeat (only this time we’d know what to say each time, and when to say, or NOT say it!).

We stand in Andie’s room, all the hidden spills on the rug now visible, the heater vent closed, shelves bare. After nearly an entire adulthood spent being parents, the prospect of the empty nest seems tantalizing... and frightening. We know in our hearts that our kids are the main reason we have struggled to arrange all the myriad details in our lives in order, to subdue our natural laziness, and become high priests of patience, discipline, and self-denial. Yet when you come to realize that the impossible has happened, that we really have become better at those qualities than we ever expected, our kids begin leaving us, first in their hearts, then with their bodies; so seeing how far they still have to go to include those qualities in their lives, we worry and we fear. But sometimes they surprise us, at unexpected times, and if we stay calm, we know they’ll probably be all right, just as the older folks assure us with those maddening, confident smiles. And when we are finally sure of that, we can begin spending their inheritances with glee.

...to be continued...