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Raising My Children for the Second Time
Two months ago, I drove to the college campus to pick up my youngest son for what we knew then would be an extended spring break. I told him then to pack as though he was leaving school for the whole semester, just in case. He was disappointed, but trusting. I assured him that if I was wrong, we’d move his posters and pictures back in for the last few weeks of classes.
I wasn’t wrong.
A few weeks later, my oldest son moved in with us as well, newly unemployed from his bartending job in Pittsburgh.
My daughter, the middle child, already lived here, having graduated just last spring, while she works on growing her studio of private voice and piano students and earns a modest living part-time at a local gym.
I’m happy to have all three of my now young adult children back in the nest. I like them. They are good humans. I’m not at all upset to have them return. It’s not like it was when parents lamented the return of their children just as they had become empty-nesters. It would be nearly impossible for my kids to make it on their own right now. Plus, with this vicious virus in the world, I am grateful they are close.
Besides, their father and I divorced just over five years ago. It took me a long, long time to leave him. I’ve written a lot about the journey. I’m a very different…
