This morning I met with a friend for breakfast. We’d planned to get together several weeks ago for a time not long after the boys left for school. Our boys have been friends since the summer we moved here and have continued to be friends through summers at camp. It is a comfort for me as a Christian parent when my kids are able to find those kinds of solid Christian friends.

This is her second time going through the process. It really is amazing the things we learn with others simply from taking the time to get to know them. Women are missing something these days, she said. Our grandmothers used to get together to snap beans or can vegetables and all the while they’d talk. It’s where we found our encouragement and those to share the days with.

I’ve been thinking more lately about how our culture deals with parents. At some point during the summer I was doing an investigation of trying to get a hold of one school and find out something from another. There was this sense of, “Wait, am I meddling in my son’s life?” I didn’t think so. He was a counselor at camp and I was playing catch up on the ways we were behind.

There was something where they were not able to do through my email, they had to hear directly from the student. She was apologetic and said she hoped I could understand. I did understand, and yet, it still hurt. I choked back a tear or two and later told my son that he was going to have to find a time to come back home and use the computer. We had a few times like that.

And of course in all this I seem like “the nag”. Or at least that is how I felt I seemed. And that’s just it, there are way too many negative archetypes of mothers out there. We’re either neurotic and nagging, or we’re abusive and toxic, or we’re cold, distant, and unavailable. It can really make you wonder if your mother or your father at any time did anything right.

I can think of times when I have been all of those things. And I am not discounting by any means that our parents are flawed people who have caused pain in our lives. At some point, however, we have to see them for who they are, and who our parents are includes a mixture of virtue and vice. Each of us comes from a unique set of parents and through them we were given the gift of life in this world.

Being with others has this way of cleaning out the spiderwebs that have formed in our heads, these thick strings of lies influencing the way we act and think. Solomon wrote an entire biblical book whose purpose was to give “knowledge and discretion to the youth.” In the Lord’s mind parental teaching and influence is valuable, described as “pendants for your neck”, that is, something to keep with you.

So with all of that this morning, and with conversations we’ve had in the past, she gave me the courage to continue reaching out. At first I was mad that this was the way it had to be. I’m supposed to be letting him go and letting him find his footing and just forgetting he’s this person I’ve nurtured and loved for 18+ years. I wasn’t even going to text him. Texting too soon would be just me being “that mom”.

That mom who what? Loves her son? I’d asked her a few weeks ago how often texted and she told me every day. My mouth dropped open. Even if they don’t say anything, or she would just say goodnight, or send a daily verse in the family chat. With one of them she’s doing a 10-day devotional about transitioning to college. I read through the sample and then downloaded the app to access the others.