I’M A STAY-AT-HOME MOM, AT AGE 62

Er….no I am not the lady who had fertility treatments and gave birth at 62.  That woman was nuts.  I am, however, a little bit nuts anyway because my granddaughter (who I will call ‘Skye’), age 3, lives with me and my husband.  I am a writer, a teacher, and now a stay-at-home-mom.  This was not in the master plan for my life.  How did this happen? 

Did I mention that I love this child more than life?

I raised four children quite well in my 30’s and 40’s.  Three boys, followed by a girl.  Raising four was mostly easy and fun, but I won’t lie:  there were tough days, like the time one vomited all over the table at a restaurant, or trips to the ER for broken bones or stitches, usually to the head, or the time I was down with pneumonia and still had to drive the carpool, or the time I couldn’t go to a friend's wedding because I couldn’t find a sitter, or the time I quit a job I loved because the balancing act between home and work was killing me.  Then there were the teen years. 

My boys all went a little bit wild from puberty through the teens to finally becoming human.  One went well beyond “a little wild.”  But the girl.  Well, there is a problem with a girl going “a little bit wild”.  Girls can get pregnant.  When I knew my daughter Katherine, who has emotional illness and learning issues, was living recklessly in her late teens, I made sure she was on birth control, and warned her:  “Do NOT get pregnant.  I won’t help. I won’t raise your child.”   I stupidly had a vague hope that being tough like that would deter her from ever taking a chance on unprotected sex.  I was serious about having no intention of starting over again with a baby in middle age.  That vomiting, ER visits, taking-no-days-off part of my life was over.  Over.

Well, she did it anyway.  Got pregnant by someone she was no longer seeing.  Abortion was out of the question; for her on principle, for me, because she was already in her fourth month. We dragged her to see an adoption attorney, but she insisted she would not give up her baby.  We hoped that would change.  In the meantime, she met a new young man who said he loved her and wanted to marry her, even though he knew the baby wasn’t his biologically.  They eloped.  We breathed a sigh of relief because it seemed they might be able to forge some kind of normal family life.  The baby would have a name and two parents.  We provided what they needed to get started; an apartment, some secondhand furniture, an old car.  He had a job, he was calm, he was strong, he seemed devoted to her.  They talked about baby names.  He seemed ready to be a father.

Just before the baby came my daughter began to complain to me that she wanted out of the marriage.   He was with her in the delivery room, and took to parenting the newborn like a natural.  My daughter, on the other hand, developed a severe case of post-partum insanity.  She was irritable, unreasonable, and unable to consistently care for the baby.   Within weeks she left her husband and baby behind and took off with an old boyfriend from high school.  She disappeared for several months, while her husband and the baby moved in with us.  We went to court to legalize Skye’s shared custody between him and us.  As the months went by, he began to spend more time away from our home than in it, sometimes returning to his parents house, where his mother began caring for the baby more than he did.  He was attentive and loving when with his daughter, but wasn’t around all that much, leaving the area for months at a time over the next two years, while the grandparents (we, and his parents) took turns caring for Skye.  She spent increasing amounts of time with us, to the point where by the time she was 18 months old, she was like our own child.  With seeming no other options, we began to think of adopting her officially, so she would have a permanent home and permanent caregivers. Parenting in our 60’s was daunting, and worry about how long we could actually do this was scary, but what alternative did this little girl have?  No mother around, and an itinerant father.  Did I mention we were madly in love with this adorable child?

Every day that she is with us, Skye is more like our own child. Sometimes in her presence I forget to refer to myself as “Nana” and say “Mommy” instead.  I have to catch myself.  She makes me laugh. She looks like our family, and could be a sibling when you look at pictures of our children at the same age.  She is smart, charming, funny, independent, flexible and beautiful, with a head full of curls and the longest lashes in the world.

What kind of parent am I now, compared to my first go-round?  Some observations about how things are different:

How I admire my younger self, who traveled this road so easily with four kids, and now I find just one child exhausting.

I know I can’t balance a job and a child, so I am a teacher who has stopped looking for a new teaching position.  I miss work outside the home.

I’m now obsessive about germs and common illnesses; so much more conscientious about handwashing and general hygiene in the family. 

Since becoming a stay-at-home mom again, I have developed health issues:  I’ve gained 15 pounds, and my cholesterol, blood pressure and glucose levels are all up.

I’m less worried that everything may permanently damage the child.  Ice cream for dinner?  Okay!  Watching “Frozen” for the 60^th time?  Okay!

I’m less concerned about whether she will eat vegetables.  I take my time responding to boo-boos and fevers.

Her speed at developmental benchmarks, like weaning, crawling, walking, potty training don’t preoccupy me;  Skye has done these things when she decided to.

I’m not afraid to tell her “No.”.  Time-outs are rare, but so much easier to enforce.

Time moves slowly now; it isn’t the same busy, rushed life when I was raising my kids.  Much of the time, it’s just her and me, and we have the time now to read a book together, or sit on the floor and play with blocks.  Skye and I have moments to just be.

At 62, parenting skills come back easily, even stronger.  However, there is one big, sobering difference between being a young parent and being an older one:  At 32 life seems to stand endless in front of you; you know that your children will grow up and eventually be adults, but that time seems a million years away.  I have seen my own four children grow to their late twenties and thirties; sadly, I have already buried one of my children.  At my age I understand the fragility and brevity of life; and I know that time doesn’t stretch out ahead forever.  When Skye is a teenager I will be in my 70’s (GULP!).  I may not be around to see her reach age 30.  This is a perspective that can only come with maturity.

In the meantime, she keeps me and my husband active and not preoccupied with retirement planning. We do the same things with her we did with our own kids: Disney movies and playgrounds, shopping and beach vacations, playing with our dog and reading books.  We are reliving our youth in these ways, experiencing joys that normal “occasional” grandparents never will.  Sometimes she makes me feel 32 again.

I love the saying, “Life is what happens when you are making other plans.” because it is so very true, at least for me.  Parenting Skye was not my plan; in fact I did everything I could to avoid being exactly where I am. I have to believe there is a power greater than myself for whom this IS the plan, and I am the beneficiary.  Perhaps there is meaning in having lost a son at the same time I have gained a new little daughter.  I have to focus on each day, to appreciate each and every happy moment with this little girl, and not allow worry about what lies ahead diminish the joy of today.

(Note:  some of this is excerpted from my (as yet unpublished) memoir “Swimming: A mothers tale of navigating the mental illness tide”

Blog:  Truthaccordingtomary.blogspot.com

Twitter:  @marymckay3