EXTREME PARENTING OVER 40

EPo-40

Episode 1. It was a dark and stormy night...

You’re probably wondering, ‘What in the world is EPo-40?’ Sounds like a C3PO relative from Star Wars, doesn’t it? In a sense it is… ‘EPo-40’ stands for ‘EXTREME PARENTING OVER 40’. For those of you who can relate, you know it’s a cosmic experience having children at an older age. You even begin to function like a robot from lack of sleep. For those of you who know, the childbearing decision always comes without the forethought of what the future may actually be like once your little bundle of joy becomes a teenager. For me, as it relates to this column, I am a person who has been orbiting this idea of writing something on this subject for quite awhile… because I didn’t have time before, I’m now falling into the category ‘EXTREME PARENTING OVER 50’ which is even scarier! For purposes of this column – we’ll just say ‘over 40’ – since that’s when this unearthly experience started for me.

I’d like to start with thanking my lucky stars to actually have my children. I do love them… (Gulp) most days. I have learned that as many times as I spent caring for my nieces or godchildren, it’s just not the same until you enter the black hole all by yourself. Although, I wish I knew at the time, when my childbearing alarm bells were sounding off and flashing… to think for just a brief moment about how I was destined to have a daughter who would be ready to get her first period just as I was having my last. We are now on the horizon of a hormone tsunami with yet unforeseen repercussions. I am also learning that with each day I become less patient and I’m becoming -- God help us—more like my mother than I care to be, stubborn and set in my ways! The escapades of my life to be written in this column will reinforce the differences between being a mom to children when you were supposed to have children and one of us! Believe me; it’s tough to start this life journey at 40!

Join me in finding the humor in being an ‘older parent’. For the moment, I have a 13 year old daughter who is ‘finding her voice’ as a sassy teenager and a son who is 10. He is still very sweet and views life way too literally. To protect the guilty in this column; ‘The Sass’ is my oldest- and ‘Fireball’ is the second in command. As parents, we step in line and fulfill our mission to serve.

To begin… ‘The Sass’ was our ‘over-welcomed’ child who ruled the roost way too long…. After years of infertility, she was our joy in every sense of the word. This is a child that had a closet double-hung with beautifully ironed clothes (even linen), frilly bonnets, hair bows and pacifiers to match outfits! As it turned out, there were not enough hours in the day, week or month to wear this variety and she outgrew most outfits with the tags still on them. Now looking back- it is a comical sight, most of her clothes today have never been near an iron and we are lucky if they are even folded after washing- some weeks we just work out of the laundry basket. As for ‘Fireball’, he will wear the same thing every day so that cuts down on the laundry considerably. Speaking of laundry….when you are ‘orbiting’ in this ‘kid life’, you don’t realize exactly how far into the stratosphere you’ve gone until things like the following happen. Back when I was in charge of just my own life, I was a fairly accomplished business woman for several large corporations. I was also lucky to have exciting work that allowed me to travel internationally for several years. I was daydreaming one day as I was folding another load of clothes and lamenting to my son, stating that ‘I used to do my work all over the world’ --- he thought for a moment and said ‘THAT’, (folding laundry)!! Hence, my pseudo name; ‘The International Laundress’.

Signing off……

The International Laundress