TESTING MY VOCATIONAL SKILLS

It's official: I have been admitted to the university's Master's degree program in Community Counseling. In June (only several weeks away), I will begin to work toward doing what I must to become a licensed mental health counselor.

Consistent with Life's serendipitous nature, my skills as a  potential counselor are being tested - to the extreme. My own children are struggling with establishing foundations upon which to build the rest of their lives. In particular, my 25 year old son, my 23 year old daughter, and my 22 year old son are each returning to the nest, unable to be self-sufficient, and looking to me to help them. In essence, I must devise a treatment plan for each one of them, and then guide them toward becoming who they really are.

This daunting task is one that would have been better met had our home not gone into foreclosure six years ago. So, this is unfinished business. Some have said that since they are officially adults, it is their responsibility now to do what they must to establish themselves; I disagree. I believe I owe it to them to assist them, as best I can, toward their next step. They are still adolescents, in terms of their emotional development and as a result of our household falling apart when it did. Therefore, I feel fully responsible for helping them transition into adulthood.

I must admit that I am somewhat angry that their father is no longer in the area and so the burden falls directly upon me. I admit that I feel some resentment that he fell short of providing all that was necessary when the kids were young; but, I was not much better. We both allowed the dynamics of our relationship to interfere with the primary task at hand: childrearing. Looking back, I now realize that we were selfish and never looked at our household from the childrens' perspective. As a result, the kids suffered the most. So now, as a result, we owe it to our kids to pull them up out of the chaos that we as their parents created. We must fix what we destroyed.

Realizing all of this puts me in a position where my vocational skills - however immature they may still be - are being called upon and put to the test. In the coming weeks, it will be my task to consult privately with each of these three, determine what they want to do, and then help them create a realistic, workable plan to guide them as they set out to achieve their goals. Naturally, their participation is mandatory; without it, however good my guidance might be, it will not succeed.

So my mind is racing with ideas and insights: vocational assessments, networking, creating resumes, and lots and lots of encouragement.

And it is not just my own three grown children that I will be assisting here, but also their partners. So it is a large task indeed. But, it will be a good test for me. It will train me to be objective, realistic, and consistent. I will need to explore what is available in the community that might benefit them. I must be creative. I must follow up daily to ensure completion of goals. And it won't be easy.

Doing all of this will also require that we all keep the goal in sight. And, it will mean that we must encourage each other. We can't fall back into the habit of complacency. This is our last chance to set a solid foundation. Without it, a lifetime of despair is inevitable.

It's a tall order, but I am nonetheless optimistic!

BE CAREFUL ABOUT WHAT YOU WISH FOR...

...BECAUSE IT MIGHT JUST HAPPEN!

Well, that's what my mom has always said and I have found it to be true.

Tomorrow morning, my youngest daughter will be moving from our home in Illinois to Texas and she will be taking her two children, Damien (5) and Ada (3). I am heartbroken.

Everyday I have felt overcrowded and overwhelmed by the size of our household and have both dreamed and wished for the day when the grown kids would finally be able to move out. Perhaps my desires weren't specific enough because although I longed for the solitude, I never ever wanted my kids and grandkids to move all the way across the country.

I am consumed with worry, as only a mother can do. A million "what-if's" run through my head and my anxiety reaches a fevered pitch. What if the kids are traumatized by leaving the only home they have ever known? What if Ada cannot cope with being suddenly away from her daddy? What if the man my daughter will be living with is not friendly with the kids? What if someone gets seriously hurt and I cannot get to them quickly? What if my daughter cannot handle full-time parenting without the relief that she's known here with a houseful of available adults?

And then there are the "what-if's" about me: What if I cannot cope with their absence? What if I cannot find happiness in the solitude I've craved for so long? What will I do with my time, now that my daily housework load will be greatly reduced? Will I do all the things I've longed to do? Or will I be consumed with melancholy sadness missing my son (who relocated to Phoenix nine months ago), my baby girl, and my grandchildren?

No. I must be strong. Certainly I am not the first parent/grandparent to experience this. In today's world, families separate and move far from each other all the time. I am not alone. But I don't like it. Parenting was so much easier when I could control where they went and what they did.

A lesson to be learned here, I am sure.

I want only the very best for my children. I want them to create their own lives just as they would like it to be. I've always wanted them to realize that there is a whole world outside of southern Cook County, and so I should feel a sense of satisfaction that, in spite of anxiety, two of my six children have ventured out into the world and are chasing down their dreams far from home.

And yet, tomorrow morning as they pull away, I will be crushed and I will be wondering if my constant longing for solitude is the reason for their leaving and I will be asking myself, "Did I cause this?"

SO NOW, THIS

Admittedly, I've made errors that will echo and reverberate for generations to come and the realizations, regrets and insights that I've acquired since making those mistakes have come way too late; but still I must move forward, and in doing so I hope to set a positive example for my now grown children.

My first step in moving forward has been honesty. I have expressed my regrets to each of my children. I admitted to dropping the ball as a parent. I fell short of my own parenting goals and allowed their father's dysfunctions and mine to directly and adversely affect the well-being of my children. We failed to lay a solid foundation within each of them upon which they could've built their adult lives. Being honest about our failures was the first step toward salvaging.

The second step was recognizing, that because of my inadequacies as a parent, I am now obligated to pick up the pieces and I can do that by helping them complete the task of preparing for adult life, even though they are all of legal age. In practical terms, it means continuing to provide a place to live - rent free - for a few of them as they finish their education, decide what they want to do with the rest of their lives, and reach a higher level of emotional maturity. It means that when my kids need my help, I do my best to provide it, looking not so much at their age, but at their developmental, social, emotional, and psychological maturity. I must finish the task, even if they are beyond legal age.

Concurrent with those first few steps that I've taken, I am continuing my own education in an effort to become self-sufficient. In doing so, I hope prove to my children that it is never too late. As I continue to pursue my vocational goals, even at my stage of life, I hope that my children will benefit from my determination and persistence.

In six months, I will begin working on my master's degree in community counseling with the goal of becoming a licensed mental health counselor. If I can dedicate even just eight or ten years of my life to a vocational endeavor, to financial independence, and living life as a self-sufficient adult, I will have accomplished much.

I recall when I was younger, I used to insist I could, in fact, have it all - just not all at once. I believed in the concept of sequencing my life. In my thirties, my focus was childrearing. In my forties, my focus was furthering my education in preparation for a professional life. And then in my fifties, my focus would be on being productive in my chosen field. Looking back, I am amazed that I accomplished as much as I did, considering the level of dysfunction at play in my life during my younger years: marital discord, immaturity, poverty, substance abuse, and mental illness. Today, I am no longer with my childrens father, I am much more mature, living more comfortably, but still economically dependent, no longer dealing with substance use/abuse, and although I still struggle with anxiety, I continue to pursue a life as if the anxiety was not there.

So yes, the wisdom that comes with maturity comes way too late to prevent any of the mistakes that come with youth. But the insights I have gained will help me help others and will prevent me from continuing in dysfunction. "I can see clearly now, the rain is gone."

SO NOW WHAT?

So, now what do I do? Now that I can look back at my life with clarity, wisdom, insight, and mature judgement, what do I do with the fallout of misguided, dysfunctional, irrational choices that have reverberated across generations and infected, disabled, wounded, and stigmatized my very own children?? How do I make up for the mistakes that have been made? How can I prevent them from repeating my errors when in fact, a few of them are already well on their way in recreating the dysfunctions they grew up with and are adeptly passing those same errors along to their own children?

I realize that I am not the first to witness generational cycles of dysfunction; and certainly, mine came from somewhere! Do I simply wash my hands of all responsibility, now that each of my six children are of legal age and beyond? Do I shrug my shoulders and claim that we all have our own paths to walk, lessons to learn, and problems to solve and decide to let my children just "deal" with what they've inherited? Besides, how long am I supposed to tend to their hurts, their mistakes, and their pain? And yet, when I see them struggling as a direct result of the mistakes I made as a parent, whether directly or indirectly, I feel obliged to assist.

As I see the story of my life-choices unfold, that some of those choices have negatively effected me is simply a universal law of reaping what we have sown; but to see my choices harm my children even into their adult years is an unbearable pain for me and it triggers even more regrets. So now, what??

As the regrets pile up, the solutions seem so far out of reach. While it is true that my horizon looks bright and promising, will it come to pass soon enough? Currently, I am in no position to truly help them because I am still struggling with gaining self-suffiency and independence. Once achieved, will it be too late??

I worry about my twenty-five year old son, for example. He has no high school diploma, a limited work history, and discovered he is the victim of identity theft - something that occured when he was still a young adolescent, but didn't realize until he was of legal age. He's trying so hard to get on his own two feet, but when you are in the depths of poverty, one step forward is almost always followed by two steps back. In fact, none of my six children are truly independent or self-sufficient. Whether dependent as housewives, or living at home, or struggling to survive and making it only with the daily help of boyfriends and parents or inlaws, each one of my children struggles to stand on their own. I accept the blame. I realize I did not do nearly enough to get them established. Of course, not me alone; their father had a huge role in their upbringing too. But the errors he made, I allowed. I did not stand up for my children's best interest and now they pay the price.

So now what?? All I can really do is take it day-by-day and continue to help them, guide them, and point them in the direction that will best help them overcome their inherited burdens. But while doing all that, I often feel guilty, remorseful, sad, disappointed, and overwhelmed with worry. And sometimes, I even feel a sense of shock and disbelief that I fell so short of my own personal goals as a parent and allowed my dysfunctional marriage relationship to take precedence over everything else, including my children...and I wonder if I can ever forgive myself for that.