Opposite Ends of the Stroller
At the edge of an empty nest, I’m learning to savor the baby years from a new distance
This essay is part of the Between Chapters project, inspired by the book. What chapters are you between? How did you get from one chapter to another? Share your story here.
What Chapter Are You…
Leaving:
I'm finally done raising kids and caring for aging parents.
In:
I'm standing on the edge of the empty nest.
Entering:
I'm staring down the barrel of a long and increasingly challenging caregiving journey.
On the morning I no longer had any children in my care, at least according to the law, I got up early and walked down to the beach at the resort where we were spending the holidays. I breathed in the warm air and felt the ocean breeze in my hair. I looked out at the expanse of blue-green water and soft white clouds. I wiggled my toes in the cool, white sand. It was our first full day of vacation, and in a few hours, when everyone was awake, we would celebrate our youngest child turning 18.
Walking back to our room, I came upon a young father pushing a stroller. We greeted each other warmly, and I bent to peer under the stroller canopy at the toddler within. She was maybe 18 months old, with wispy blonde hair and big blue eyes. She was wearing pink pajamas and grey miniature Crocs. I asked if she was taking a little nap on her walk, and her father told me no, he was just walking her to buy time while his older children slept. He had pulled the short straw and was charged with taking the baby out so everyone else could wake at a more civilized hour.
I told him that my “baby” turned 18 that very day and was asleep inside her hotel room, along with her older brother and sister. He responded simply: “Jealous.”
He was jealous of me.
My kids are grown and don’t need to be carried or walked in a stroller in the early morning hours. They sleep, typically quite late if given the opportunity. They brush their own teeth and use forks and knives to feed themselves. They drive, work, and mostly handle their own problems. That level of parenting freedom seemed painfully far off to this young father. And his life stage, filled as it is with Goldfish crackers and board books, chicken nuggets and tantrums, felt like ancient history to me.
We were two people on opposite ends of the same continuum. I wondered who, exactly, should be jealous of whom.
It all went by so quickly, the 25 years I’ve spent raising children. Of course it did. To paraphrase John Lennon, life is what happens while you’re changing diapers, registering for Super Soccer Stars, managing adolescent angst, and navigating college applications. And then, suddenly, it’s over.
We always knew this was the outcome. We signed up for this gig. If we were doing it right, and if we were very, very lucky, the job was scheduled to change around the 18-year mark. We really can’t, and shouldn’t, be surprised or aggrieved when we wake up and the house is quiet. We knew this was coming from the day we brought our first baby home from the hospital.
I don’t fool myself into thinking that my job as Mom and COO of our family magically ends on an August day when I drive away from a college campus with tears in my eyes. The job of mother, with all of its attendant worries and joys, is lifelong.
But for now, I am contemplating the quiet end of an era. My youngest child is technically an adult and hasn’t been a baby in a very long time. Google informed me that her email account is now entirely under her control. Her doctors’ office will no longer allow me to log into her account to make appointments and pay bills, so good luck to everyone involved. She managed her college process almost entirely on her own.
I’m not sad about any of these things. I’m happy to move into this new stage. This child and I have a great relationship, and we understand and enjoy each other immensely. Will I be sad when she goes off to college? Of course. I’ll be losing my constant companion and buddy. But I’ll also be pleased, proud, and excited for her as she starts this new phase, embarking on the roller coaster of whatever comes next.
As I contemplated my baby’s birthday while interacting with that little cutie in her stroller, I was reminded that I have not held a baby in forever. The youngest children in our family are my nieces, who are nearly nine. I’ll sometimes see a cute baby on the street and joke that I’d like to scoop them up, place them in my bag, take them home, and snuggle them. My daughter reminds me that this is insane, and that I shouldn’t say these words out loud because someone might call the police.
But I miss the many delicious sensory experiences of holding a baby: that sandbag weight in my arms; the smell of their heads and necks, a mixture of sour and sweet, soap and skin; the impossible softness of their cheeks; the downy fuzz of their hair; their tiny toes and nails, so small they defy logic; the singular quality of their fat rolls, like Pillsbury biscuit dough fresh from the airtight tube.
I know I’ll have other opportunities to hold babies, and I look forward to them. I will enjoy those moments so much, and appreciate them in a way I couldn’t always when the baby was my own and my love was tangled up with stress, exhaustion, and overwhelm. I’ll savor it. I’ll inhale deeply. I’ll gently stroke all of those delicious parts.
And then, with joy, nostalgia, and a little sadness, I’ll hand the baby back.
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