I'm Back and I've Got Issues

I was at a bookstore in the middle of the day yesterday. Significant other in the form of spouse sat across from me. This sitting at a bookstore for hours on end was something we did regularly before being parents. And, yesterday was the first time we did it again in three years. It was so fun to be together, alone, awake and able to have conversations.

My daughter doesn't seem to mind being an only child. However, she likes it best when only Mommy or only Daddy is home. Otherwise we talk to each other and that's so "boring" for her. Yikes! How do we go from attachment parenting to helping her realize it's actually a good thing for the parents to be attached to each other as well?

Anyhow, I was looking at lots of titles and deciding whether or not I'd buy them. I grabbed Motherless Mothers by Hope Edelman (sp?) because even though I have a mother who is alive I don't have a mother I see more than once a month who is in my life in a day to day way. My mother was a teen when she had kids and is now working full-time. Though we're closer than we've ever been we're not "drop by or drive by" close. Visits are pre-arranged and require a road trip and an invitation. And, since my mother had three kids by her 22nd birthday, she wasn't doing a style of parenting other than the "best I can" version. So, I don't go to her for advice or counsel or relief.

What type of mother do I want to be - to my pre-schooler and then to the girl-young adult and woman she turns into? In this book there was a quote by Anna Freud which read, "A mother's job is to be there to be left." It was in a chapter about pre-school. It made me sad. I love and admire and am proud of my daughter's growing independence and with it there's a feeling of missing her. I see her greet the world and develop a relationship with it that is quite her own. Home, her home base, keeps growing.

We've lived a month this week and there's too much to post but I realized I do want to ponder again, regularly and in community, about writing, parenting, being a constant seeker spiritually and being an adult constantly recovering from the impact of trauma popping up here and there. Another significant section in Edleman's book was about how unresolved grief, on the part of a mother, impacted her mothering and of course her child/ren. So, apparently grief work is important if not pleasant - not just for those who grieve but for those being parented by them!