The Synergistic Pen

that's my daughter and her cousin in the picture...in case you care...









Parenting does not come with a manual. I knew that when I went into this business.
I come from a long line of "mothers"... women who have either chosen or falling headlong into the job of nurturing fetuses in their wombs and then giving birth to babies. We then spend the next 18 - 22 years preparing these children, getting them to a place where they are responsible, mature adults, able to care for themselves and are no longer dependent on us.

Its the hardest job I'll ever have.
There have been days when I've hated this job.
Today, I discovered I love what I do.
Today, I discovered I did a good job with at least one of the babies I raised.

My daughter is a sophomore at the University of Illinois. That in itself is a surreal statement for me, as I recall quite vividly the day I found out I was pregnant with her.

She was the precocious one; you know, talking all the time, full of wonder and interest in the world around her. The "second mother" to her younger brother and all the cousins that came after her (she's the eldest grandchild). The trendsetter, the fashionnista, the opinionated, argumentative one who has never had a problem with telling, politely, any adult EXACTLY what she thinks.

She has been emailing me about the apartment she and her best friend will be renting next school year. Apparently, at the University of Illinois and in Champaign in general, you need to take care of the details of such things nearly a year in advance. She's researched a few places, done a couple of walk throughs, had me and a law school buddy go over some leases and has chosen a complex she likes.

She called today.

"Ma, ok, this is what I need for you to do. I need you and Mushu (her best friend) here on the 27th to check this place out and we can decide if this is a good place and if it is, we can sign the lease, ok? Is the 27th good for you?"

"Hello. How are you? Did you get my message the other day?"

"Oh, hey ma."

We both laugh.

After about 5 minutes of her talking and me saying ok in the right places in the discussion, she gives her standard post script:

"I know you hate talking on the phone (I REALLY hate talking on the phone) so let me get off... I have all my homework done so I'm going to read this book I got from the library. Love you, bye."

And, she's gone.

I sit here a moment and process what has just happened.

When I was 19 years old, to even consider having a "Ma, I'm getting an apartment" conversation with my mother was so totally not something I would have thought about, and here I was, completely comfortable with knowing that my child is perfectly capable of handling the responsibility of paying rent and bills and keeping some food in the refrigerator. She is my child....yet, she is NOT me... not at all.

She's always been the independent one. So independent, we rarely saw her senior year in high school. If she wasn't at school, she was at either swim practice or track practice or tennis practice or her parttime job or, according to her boyfriend, sleeping in some movie he'd just paid a lot of money for them to see. Which was ok with us.

My husband and I have always looked at our jobs as parents as merely being the "keepers" of one of God's creations... she doesn't belong to us, we're just the ones who are preparing her to go forth and do HIS will in this world. There was no way of knowing how she'd turn out. All we could do was be who we were, pass on what we know, be the appropriate examples and guide her as she learned to make decisions about what she believes should happen in her life.

I'll admit, last year was hard; she wasn't here. I worried about her eating and wandering in a strange place, sometimes alone. She missed her bus one evening after going to see a French movie as part of an assignment for her French class, and called her father. They talked and laughed while she walked, alone back to her dorm, nearly 2 miles away. When she got "home", he chastised her quietly and then came to bed, a few more grey hairs on his head. Freshman year was hard.

I hoped she'd find new experiences, make new friends, not end up with a wild crowd. I don't know why I worried: the day her grandmother and I took her down for orientation, she immediately hooked up with 5 girls in her academic department and got their email addresses and they've been inseperable ever since. That's MY child...the social diva.

This year, we took her down, she got settled in and she and her roommate shoo'd us away within 2 hours. We drove the 130 miles home in silence. Our baby girl is on her way.

I think we did a good job of it...

Now, if we can just get her brother to put down the video controls and go find a job...

ugh...

I swear I have low tolerance for the braindead...

while perusing one of my favorite forums, I came across a thread where folk were lifting up McCain and knocking down Obama...

why?

because McCain said the word "God" and Obama said "that's out of my pay grade"...

the irony of this thread was, the originator of it... admitted right up front that the only reason she even watched McCain's speech the other day was because her mother wanted her to (this is a grown woman, mind you, not a 18 year old just getting into the political mix). She freely admitted that she doesn't plan on voting at all...

but now, because of the words used by two men running for office, she's gonna "think about" voting....

amazing...

according to her, the republicans have it right...

fornication and the sometimes subsequent abortion is a bad thing
no prayer in school is a bad thing
not fighting for our freedom is a bad thing...

this from a 30 something year old, with children, living a comfortable life apparently, who wants us all to be kind to her because, yes, "our people fought for the right to vote"

who may not show up on November 5th....

and if she does,it will be because some old man said "God"... and that pleases her...

politics and religion don't mix... Democrats know this...so do Republicans...

yet, every major election, one group or the other evokes the name of God in the attempt to endear themselves to the populous...


the really sad thing about THIS particular instance of braindeath is...

fornication is bad, yet one of the candidate's children is underaged and about to become a mother...

not having prayer in school is bad, yet the only other time some pray is when it will get them the vote...

not fighting for our freedom is bad...but after 7 years of fighting... they FINALLY found someone whose kid is ACTUALLY gonna go fight...

hypocrisy is a mutha...ain't it?

wonder if I should run for public office, promising to have God in the chair right next to me....? wonder if I'll get the job?

this issue about vice presidental candidates, pregnant daughters, pro life, abstinence and sex education is schools has gotten me to thinking....

how you gonna not want sex ed in schools, think abstinence is enough and then applaud not getting an abortion... when the person involved is 17 years old???

I have a 19 year old daughter... she's is a "legal adult"...so,although I spent a great deal of time and energy being her mother and preparing her to one day become someone's wife, I have given her to God and hopes she thinks before acting...

when she was 17, I KNEW she thought things through....her favorite line was... "negros want babies... I want a LIFE...."....

I tend to be a conservative when it comes to the topic of sex... I suppose the difference between me and Ms. Palin is... I walked the walk and didn't just talk the talk...

I've had a few people say, well, accidents happen... no offense but, no, accidents don't happen to a 17 year old who is being RAISED... and isn't just taking up space in your home....

and it helps to have some backup... I know I have some...to the point of insanity. My sisters are on what my daughter calls the boobie cover up squad....PLEASE don't get me started!!!

the irony of being a conservative, being pro life, believing in abstience and then not wanting folk to teach sex ed in schools is this...

they are the very people who let their kids run amuck...

I'll be quiet now...

later...

just in case you've been hiding in a cave with osama bin ladin or something exciting like that... there's drama on the republican side of the aisle...

it seems Ms. Palin wasn't pregnant afterall... or something Palin's Pregnancy?
and now, it seems that the daughter, reports have determined WAS the pregnant one... or something... Bristol's Pregnancy

well...nevermind the lie mom told to protect the daughter...
nevermind the attempted coverup...

let's look at a 17 year old being impregnated by a 22 year old for a moment...shall we?

in the state of Indiana...where I live... and, as far as I know in ALL the other 49 states in thie Union... a 17 year old having sex with a 22 year old is statuatory rape....

does anyone care?
*sigh*

Mom says they're gonna get married... isn't that special?

don't cha just love politics?