When My Kids Hate Me
Today, while I was picking the boys up from daycare, my oldest ran the full length of a hallway, big smile on his face, and launched himself into my chest for a hug. When I scooped him up into a proper bear hug he laughed and squealed. All the good juices got flowing in my brain. These moments are why people say being a parent is the best thing in the world.
I was talking about moments like this with my coworkers and added: "of course, when he's 13 he's going to hate me, and it's going to break my heart."
That got a laugh and some knowing smiles and nods. Soon enough the conversation had moved on, but that sentence, said unthinkingly and like a statement of fact, has been rattling around in the back corners of my brain since I said it. Why do I take it as a foregone conclusion that my kids will hate me, or at least will disregard me? Certainly my father and I had difficult times when I was growing up. Now I understand that he was desperately trying not to be like his own father and didn't know how to do that. It's also a trope in media that teenagers hold their parents in some level of contempt. Some older podcasters I listen to talk about their kids and they take teenage indifference as a rite of passage.
Surely it doesn't have to be that way. If I am interested in them as people, always willing to learn about the stuff that fascinates them, always willing to listen, always willing to make time for them, surely we'll have some of those special father/son relationships. The ones where dad is one of the kids' best friends and knows everything that goes on in their lives. The ones where the boys are excited for the annual camping trip and sit up with dad by the fire swapping ghost stories and jokes. The ones where they never dismiss me, never say no to spending time with me, never stop needing me.
Pure fantasy, I know.
Truly, I don't want my kids to be dependent on me forever. I just look at their little faces, so open, so full of love, so needing to be protected and nurtured, and I have a hard time imagining that they one day won't need me or won't want me. I have a hard time imagining what that will feel like, and how I will react.
My dad and I are doing ok these days. I should call him more. I know he's proud of me for building the life that I have. I know he loves his grandkids, and they love Pop Pop. Really, that's all I can ask for. "Just live in the damn moment and enjoy the ride," my therapist says. She's probably right.