ROLE REVERSALS: IT’S SEASONAL

There’s a point in most people’s lives when there’s a role reversal between parents and children. When that starts to happen varies in families, sometimes pushed by infirmities, physical and mental, that parents’ autumnal life steers them toward a winter when leaves having turned a wonderous yellow and rust, slowing loose grip of their branches, and the seasonal chill feels more intimidating than in did the year before.  Sometime, it could be spring until a harsh, unapologetic summer, like a traumatic life experience, shakes parents’ balance and they seek support from their off springs.

Irrespective of when it happens, it mostly does.

So, unprepared or not, seeking or not, this transition, I believe, happens to most parents.

It’s fine if you seek it, and one can only hope it’s there for the taking. That your kids will be there for you. It’s when it creeps up on you, slowly, but determinedly, and you must make space to accommodate it, that growing old (after you believe you’ve grown up!) doesn’t necessarily mean that you need advice on every, or most, things in your life.

This unprepared occurrence can sometimes lead to intense discussions, sometimes over the most trivial things.  Like how you sit, what you eat (driven by some medical exigencies that require moderation), where you go, and what you should be doing with your time. Frequently, it’s exhausting to be told how, when and where to do things, particularly after that’s what you’ve already done most of your life.  Importantly, when you had to do it while bringing up kids and working.  Back then, at home, the kids pretty much dictated your schedule and what you did with your time off from work.  In office, you expended your energies to excel and do what was required and more.  How else would you get the bacon in — bread and butter aren’t enough to make a sandwich!

And then, spring, summer and some bit of autumn enters confirming what it takes.  Come time for dimming lights, when you’d like to up your feet, do your own thing at your own time, there’s another regimen that emerges!  You have a different boss.  Your kids!

Now, this might sound a little harsh and a bit stilted.  Because, despite the periodic instructions, and the temporary resentment that comes with being told what to do, it’s a pleasure and, if I may add, a bonus, to have your kids with you at home, especially during these tumultuous times.  The pandemic has made it difficult to do all the things we put on the back burner when we have the time.  Now with so much of it, we seek ways to fill our hitherto busy days with what we intended to do.

So, I’ve being expending time weighing the times I should concede to my kids’ recommendations and when I should withdraw.  Adding years to your life teaches you to be patient!  Through many ruminations, I have found myself considering that I’d like to never forget that while I lament about what is happening to me in the autumn of my life, these kids are being denied experiences that I went through during my youth.

I know that October, when leaves start to turn brown, is hard for us.  We turn introspective and seek solace and calm. But April, Eliot said, is a cruel month. And rightly so, a time when our children are fumbling to find their path in the quagmire of disconnect and uncertainty.  They have been denied the freedom and exploration that our youth afforded. 

So, while I bemoan my situation, I am cognizant of the fact that I must focus on their tribulations. Sometimes, it’s tough.  But it’s important to do so and I will continue to strive.

“Drive my dead thoughts over the universe
Like withered leaves to quicken a new birth!
And, by the incantation of this verse,

Scatter, as from an unextinguished hearth
Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind!
Be through my lips to unawakened Earth;

The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind
If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?” —Ode to the West Wind Percy Bysshe Shelley